


Trifecta

by frogs_of_war



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M, Triple slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 48,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogs_of_war/pseuds/frogs_of_war
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenneth picked a unique gifts for Ty on their seventh anniversary: opening their relationship to that cute young bartender from the New Year's Eve party. Told through eighteen celebrations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Years, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth has an idea

Kenneth hung his sports coat in the closet. He really was getting old and boring. Ty flung himself on the couch. The hem of his kilt flipped up, exposing a beautiful portion of his muscular, russet haired thigh. Kenneth really had the best looking boyfriend on earth. 

Seven years. Today was seven years since the New Years Eve they met, the night Ty came home with him, moved in with him. Everything had run fast and hot. The sex had been wonderful. It still was wonderful.

But tonight their friends had been in high form. Flannigan had claimed that Kenneth and Ty were no longer hip and edgy. They were just like any old married couple: the internet had become more interesting than sex.

Kenneth had laughed with everyone else, but that line had stung. So had the way Ty looked at that pretty young bartender.

Kenneth got out the bottle of Champagne he’d chilled for tonight. He brought it and two wine glasses to the coffee table. He opened the bottle without spilling a drop, poured out, and handed Ty a glass. “To us.”

Ty sat up and took the glass. He grinned. “To us.”

Ty was happy, Kenneth knew, and content to be in a closed relationship despite his preoccupation with that bartender. He was the one who’d wanted their relationship to be closed in the first place. But people change.

Kenneth wasn’t getting any younger. The big four oh was just around the corner. He wasn’t going grey gracefully, but time would take other things from him eventually. Ty, on the other hand, was still closer to thirty than forty. One of these days Kenneth might be grateful for infrequent sex, but that time wasn’t now. 

He loved Ty. And he knew Ty loved him, but they needed something to revive their romance and he though he just might know the thing.

If he misjudged, he’d be spending tonight on the couch.

“I love you. And I didn’t buy you anything.”

“But you have something planned.” Ty grinned and bounced in his seat. His drink sloshed in his glass. “A weekend at a hotel? A week somewhere warm? A trip to the mountains where we warm each other up?”

All those sounded like a kick start for their romantic life, but he had something else in mind. “A surprise.”

Ty set down his glass and bounced even higher. “I love surprises. Tell me!”

Ty was so hot. Kenneth grabbed his vest and dragged their lips together. They were ending the night in bed no matter what.

Kenneth slipped his hand under Ty’s vest and ran his fingers through the russet curls. Ty was the young bartender’s type: tall, relatively young, fit, hairy, and fae.

Kenneth backed off slowly. “Do you remember that bartender tonight? The one who helped you win the bet?”

Ty’s eyes sparkled. “What a pretty little thing he was and such a good kisser. Only I know you paid him to kiss me.”

“I paid him to do whatever you asked him to.” Then Kenneth had talked the table around to dares and then to Ty getting that pretty little thing to kiss him. Seeing Ty’s face when the bartender agreed was worth the hour’s effort. Kenneth topped off their glasses. “He would have kissed you for free.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I asked him. I also know his name is Damien Parzen, that’s he’s too young to tend a bar, but as he’s temping during the holidays, no one is looking at his ID too closely.”

“Except you.”

Kenneth shrugged. “You know me.”

“Do I?” Ty raised his eyebrows. “I wonder.”

Kenneth took Ty’s hand. “He tended bar at the stupid Christmas soiree I was supposed to look straight at. And again at Kelly’s shindig. And at the restaurant where Flannigan treated me to lunch.”

Ty sighed. “He gets around.”

“He’s sleeping on the couch of the girlfriend of a guy he met on the bus. He gets home from work between three and four depending on how late the bus is. He doesn’t have a car. And the household wakes up at six thirty. He was sleeping in the parks afternoons until the cold snap.”

Ty glanced toward the spare room. “He could stay here.”

When they’d moved in two years ago, that room became a giant closet. Ty kept saying he wanted to get it nice enough for company.

Ty shifted on the couch and arranged himself.

Kenneth smiled. This might just work. “He’s pretty, isn’t he?”

Ty frowned. “You would know. You spent a lot of time talking to him.”

“I spend a lot of time talking to anyone who can’t keep their eyes off my man.”

“No!”

“He was positively drooling. Did you notice that he had to excuse himself after he kissed you, but that he wasn’t gone long? You left him a hair’s breadth from coming.”

Ty put a pillow in his lap. “You are only guessing.”

Kenneth shook his head. “I asked.”

“But why?” Ty frowned.

It was too late to chicken out. “Because I thought, my dear wonderful Ty… I hoped that you would let me invite him over. Into our bed.”

Ty stood up and paced the room, the pillow still tight in his grasp. “We don’t need…” He glance was heartbreaking. “Do we?”

“We don’t need anything. I will be content, happy even, to never touch anyone but you for the rest of my life. I thought maybe you—”

“But I love you!”

“You can love me and still be attracted to Damien. Tonight I give you permission to want someone else.”

“Is this goodbye then? Are we breaking up? On our anniversary no less.” Ty stopped beside the coffee table and downed his glass.

Kenneth wanted to pull Ty close and reassure him, but years of experience had taught him to let Ty talk things out alone. Kenneth picked up his own pillow to hug.

“Only,” Ty refilled his glass. “You say you aren’t getting rid of me.”

“I’m not.” Kenneth relaxed into the couch. Once Ty acknowledged his existence, the worst was over.

“But you paid a lot of attention to him.” Ty pointed at Kenneth with his glass. “That’s why I fell in love with you, you know, all that undivided attention.”

Kenneth smiled. He enjoyed that compliment. “But I’m not his type. You are.”

“You say.”

“He said.”

“Why would he say that?”

Why wouldn’t he? Ty was gorgeous. “Because I asked him.”

Ty sat down. “What did you ask?”

“I said, ‘Pretty, isn’t he’ and he said, ‘Glorious.’ He loves the way you laugh and how alive you are. You kept drawing his gaze. I could see him undress you with his eyes.”

“No!”

“I have his number. We could ask him.”

Ty shivered. “Yes!” He stood up. “Wait. I’m mad at you.”

“Why? You don’t like your gift?”

Ty glared. “What did you say to get his number?”

“I said I might know someone with an empty spare room and gave the impression it was you. This was before I reveled that you were my man.”

Ty sat down again and put both his hands on Kenneth’s arm. “How did he take it?”

“He found something else to do at the other end of the bar.”

“Oh.”

Kenneth patted Ty’s hand. “I wanted to tell him I was fine with sharing as long as I got to share him too, but I couldn’t really come out and say that until I’d talked to you.”

Ty stood up. “You just want to have sex with him!”

Kenneth leaned back. “Can you truthfully tell me you don’t?”

Ty gnawed on his lip and sat down. “We should call him.”

Kenneth pulled out his phone. “Don’t get too worked up about the sex side of things. Damien is still seventeen until a week from Thursday.” 

The phone read one and Damien wouldn’t be off until at least two.

“Then what is he doing working at a bar?”

“Trying to survive.”

Ty leaned against Kenneth. Kenneth wrapped his free arm around him and called Damien. The call went straight to voicemail. “Damien, this is Kenneth Hunt. The room I mention is free. Call me when you get off work and we can talk logistics.”

He closed the phone.

Ty hopped to his feet. “The room. It isn’t ready. He won’t be able to sleep with all that clutter.”

Damien probably wouldn’t need the room tonight, but cleaning would keep them awake until Damien called them back.

Kenneth pulled Ty into a kiss and then went to explore boxes of stuff he hadn’t missed.


	2. New Years, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien wants a warn dry bed. And the two hot guys who offered it.

Snow covered the ground, which wouldn’t be bad except Damien had only his holey sneakers and the dress shoes he needed for work. When was the bus coming?

He was later than normal tonight because he stayed to clean up after the New Year’s Eve crowed. The place had been still half full at last call. The extra time garnered extra money. Between that and the huge tip the hot older guy had given him, he could afford a cheap hotel tonight. Tomorrow he’d need to find a cheaper temporary situation. Stacy had kicked Kevin out, which left Damien without a roof over his head.

Damien’s stomach rumbled. He hiked his bag further up his shoulder. Among all his earthly possession, he didn’t have even one granola bar. But that hot older guy had given him a fifty just to kiss his glorious boyfriend. Did the bus go past a twenty-four hour waffle house?

He pulled out his phone to find out when the next bus was coming. Someone had left a voicemail. Bill collectors? Someone looking for his wayward parents? Or his parents trying to guilt him into giving them money? Somehow they only ever called when he was flush. He ignored it. He couldn’t deal with them on an empty stomach.

The automatic reply said the bus was due, but five minutes later it still hadn’t arrived. The next time he checked, the bus wasn’t due for forty minutes. Damien sighed and sank down onto the freezing bench. What was he going to do?

His phone rang. He had his phone open before he remembered to screen his calls. “Hello?”

“Damien?” said a warm, soothing voice. “This is Kenneth Hunt. I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten my message. We have a room with clean sheets that’s calling your name.”

Damien hadn’t thought he’d hear from Kenneth again. He hadn’t the first three times they met either, but when Kenneth talked to him, Damien had poured out more than he’d told to anyone. Kenneth had a way of making Damien feel like the most important person in the room. 

Even when his boyfriend — his hot, hunky, furry boyfriend — was not twenty feet away. But maybe the two were in an open relationship given that he hadn’t been too upset to share said hunky boyfriend with Damien for a brief kiss an eternity long.

“Tell us where you are and we’ll pick you up.”

Damien looked up and down the street. Would the bus ever come? Did he have a better place to sleep than in the bed of those two glorious men? He gave the cross streets.

Kenneth’s car arrived before the bus.

His beautiful boyfriend hopped out of the car and took Damien’s bag. “I’m Ty, short for Tiberius. My parents were sci-fi nuts. Let me get you in the car. Get in the front. It’s warmer up there. You must be freezing.”

Ty took Damien’s hand in his and squeezed it. Kenneth had kept the engine running and the heat on. The hot air almost scalded Damien’s skin.

Kenneth grinned and asked one of those deceptively simple questions, this one about work, and Damien found himself complaining about customers, complimenting the music compared to the other places he worked recently, and thanking them for the ride and the bed.

“Do you want to eat before we go home?”

 “All I want is to get out of my wet socks, take a hot shower, and sleep for three days.” Damien shut his eyes. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Did they want him tonight? Both of them? Had he just ruined his chance for a warm bed?

Kenneth grinned and Ty squeezed Damien’s shoulder. “We have your bed set up. Don’t mind the boxes. We’ll find homes for them. I’m so glad you’re coming to live with us.”

Did this mean he had his own room? He wasn’t going to share their bed? All that tantalizing flesh — covered in ginger curls if the glimpses inside Ty’s vest meant anything. Damien hoped Kenneth wasn’t the type to shave. Damien didn’t have enough body hair for a happy trail — if he could glimpse, but not touch, he might as well sleep in the public library once it opened. Tomorrow. Library’s were closed on New Year’s, weren’t they?

Kenneth made a sharp turn and slowly climbed a hill. A garage door opened in front of them. Kenneth pulled inside. They had arrived.

Kenneth took Damien’s bag this time. And Ty took Damien’s arm. “This way. Coats and shoes go here. We try not to wear them in the house. Oh, your poor wet feet. Do you have anything to change into after your shower? Kenneth, grab him something, will you?”

A moment later, Damien was under a hot shower in the bathroom the men obviously used. He smelled all the soaps and shampoos. What did he want to smell like? And who? But none smelled exactly like either man.

He spread body wash from the fullest bottle — he didn’t want to use anything up — over his chest and hips. He closed his eyes and imagined his hands were Kenneth’s and Ty’s.

He had never been with two men at once. He hoped he had the opportunity before they got tired of him.

The door opened. “Sorry,” said Ty. “I’m just going to make sure you have a towel and I’m going to leave you Kenneth’s boxers and my shirt.”

He paused. Damien could see him through the misty shower curtain. Colors showed and basic shapes, but no detail. Ty was gloriously beautiful. Damien longed to throw the curtain aside and asked Ty to scrub his back and see whether Ty was ginger all the way down.

Ty sighed. “Kenneth said you are still seventeen, so I better go.”

The door closed behind him. Damien breathed again. If Damien had been a few weeks older or if Kenneth hadn’t coaxed his driver’s license from him, would Ty have joined him?

Damien finished washing and shaved the almost nonexistent stubble from his chin. Whose razor was this? Kenneth had a smooth chin, but despite Ty’s short beard, he didn’t have hair on his neck, so presumably it could be his. Damien imagined the men shaving him.

He took only a moment to bring himself off. A short moment, he had been that close.

He dried off and slipped into the men’s clothing. He wanted to smell like them.

Ty was waiting in the bedroom. Damien wished he was waiting for him. Ty stood up. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? I make a mean omelet.”

Yes, Damien wanted something. But food would do. Kenneth met them in the hallway and led Damien to the table. Then he sat and talked to Damien, mostly listening, as Damien opened up yet again to this near stranger. He should be trying to win them over with his meekness, but instead he was telling his real opinion, not just the ones he thought his hosts wanted to hear.

When the omelet arrived, he dug in to keep his mouth from betraying him again.

But Kenneth grinned at Ty and turned back to Damien as if he was everything Kenneth hoped for.

After he finished eating, they had a toothbrush for him. He almost cried. He really needed some sleep.

Kenneth led the way to the spare room where Damien would be sleeping. For now. Only Kenneth’s ‘for now’ didn’t imply ‘while you live with us’ but ‘until you join us in our room.’

Or maybe that was Damien’s hormones talking.

The bed was soft and the sheets smelled fresh. When was the last time he used sheets? Or slept in a real bed?

He closed his eyes. He could hear Kenneth and Ty talk over the clink of dishes, but then water ran before he could get the just of it. A few minutes later the water stopped. Kenneth asked, “How about you plan him a party?”

“Yes, we can make it a big shindig. Wait no. Even if we waited for Saturday night. I’m not sure I’ll want to share him yet.”

“Maybe,” Kenneth said, “we could have our own private bacchanal in our room with plenty of lube, wine, and hor d'oeuvres within easy reach so we don’t have to get out of bed until morning.”

That sounded wonderful.

Water ran again for a moment. “But do you think he will join us?”

Yes!

“I mean I’m no one’s cup of tea.”

“Ty, you always say I have good taste. I say I have good enough taste to want you. You are handsome and funny and brilliant.”

And gloriously sexy and he smelled good and his uncertain face was endearing and Damien wanted to taste his full lower lip, feel his facial hair against sensitive parts of Damien, and follow Ty’s happy trail with his fingers and tongue.

“I know he wants you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very. Do you think I’d have invited him over if I didn’t think you’d get some? He drooled over you.”

Damien had.

“And who wouldn’t? Damien has good taste.”

Damien was glad Kenneth approved. He wasn’t half bad himself.

“So you don’t mind? Having him with us?”

“Ty darling, as long as you don’t mind that I have a nibble myself.”

Kissing sounds and Ty moaned low. Damien could feel Kenneth’s lips against his skin. His birthday could not come soon enough.

“How do you like your anniversary present?”

“Kenneth, I love it and you.”

Ty moaned. Kenneth growled almost like a purr. Damien wanted to be between them or just watching from the edge of the bed. But he contented himself with opening his door a bit so the noises from their room echoed in from the hallway.

He came three times before the noise died away. Then he lay quietly in the darkness and calculated the hours until next Wednesday midnight. They wouldn’t make him wait longer than that, would they?


	3. New Years, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty needs more sleep.

Ty pulled his pillow over his head. Kenneth’s alarm had gone off and the reporter was talking about some foreign place: Moscow or Syria or China or something. Six am was too early to wake up even if he hadn’t stayed up until three in the morning, but that was when Kenneth always got up.

Kenneth sat up, turned off his alarm, and put on his glasses. He pulled the covers back over Ty and patted Ty’s leg. “Sorry.”

He walked around the room and gathered his clothes then he went in the bathroom and closed the door. His shower started a moment later.

Ty rolled over and tried to get comfortable. Normally he fell asleep while Kenneth took his shower on days Kenneth’s alarm woke him up. His own alarm was set for seven thirty, but not today. New Year’s was a day to sleep in. Except he couldn’t. He pulled the covers over his head.

The coffee maker spluttered and the air filled with the smell of coffee.

Kenneth finished his shower and stepped out of the bathroom. He closed the door most of the way, but the fan was still annoying. Ty flopped to his back. Kenneth brushed the hair from Ty’s face and kissed his forehead. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Ty sighed. “Maybe I should just get up.”

“No, try to sleep.” Kenneth closed the door behind him.

Ty tried. He heard Kenneth pour his coffee and open the fridge for the milk. The spoon clinked onto the small plate. Ty was never going to go back to sleep, but he was too tired to get up.

An eon later Kenneth opened the door. “Still awake?”

“Yes,” Ty sighed.

“I had a wonderful idea.”

Ty smiled. “And what would that be?”

“I know how much you like to cuddle against a warm body and we happen to have a warm body just down the hall.”

Damien. How had Ty forgotten the cute little bartender sleeping in his spare room? Ty frowned. “He’s seventeen.”

“Not to sleep with.” Kenneth rubbed Ty’s ankle through the blankets. “To sleep beside.”

Ty sat up. “Do you think…”

Kenneth grinned. “You could always ask.”

Ty hopped up and pulled on his boxers. Damien could always say no. If he did, Ty was going to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa and watch that fireside DVD that played Christmas carols. With how dark the sky still was he could easily pretend it was night.

He stopped by the bathroom and then headed down the hall with his pillow. Damien’s door was open. Ty looked inside. Damien looked up. Ty had woken him. “Sorry.”

Damien got up on his elbow. “No. It’s ok.”

Ty held up his pillow. “I was wondering…”

Damien pulled back his covers. “Please.”

Ty grinned and slid in beside him. Damien’s lips were so close to his. Sex wasn’t usually something he thought of until he’d been up a few hours, but Damien was so pretty. Ty turned his face into his pillow. “I came to cuddle.”

Damien frowned.

“Kenneth said you might let me cuddle.”

Ty turned and snuggled against Damien. Damien rolled over and pulled himself close. He obviously could go from zero to sixty before nine am. Ty reached back and pulled Damien’s hand against his chest. “Is this ok?”

“Yeah,” Damien breathed against Ty’s neck.

“Because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He pressed his hips back for a second so Damien would know what he was talking about.

“I’m fine.”

Ty hoped he was. He closed his eyes. “I like to sleep with a warm body against mine.”

Damien cuddled closer. “Is this good?”

Ty grinned. “Very good. But can you sleep?”

Damien nuzzled against Ty’s neck. Ty relaxed into him. He loved the warmth of a good cuddle and he fell asleep to the steady rhythm of Damien’s breath.

He woke to the glow of the sun against his eyelids. Had he left the curtains opened? But no, the sun didn’t shine into his room until late afternoon. He opened his eyes and smiled. Damien was sleeping with his head on Ty’s shoulder. He was even more breathtaking up close. Damien sucked in a deep breath and relaxed further against Ty.

Sleeping next to Damien was wonderful. Ty could lay here for hours. Kenneth was walking around the kitchen. What time was it anyway? Did this room have a clock?

The door opened quietly and Kenneth looked in. Damien shifted and opened his eyes. He blinked.

Ty smiled at Kenneth and rubbed Damien’s back. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven. Are you ready for brunch?”

Damien sat up. “Almost.”

Ty pulled him back down. “Kenneth, have you started anything yet?”

Kenneth grinned. “Would you rather go out?”

Ty shook his head. “I… I want to lay here a little longer with Damien in my arms.”

Damien grinned up at him. Ty kissed him. No tongue, but that didn’t make the kiss any less sexy. Damien ran a hand up Ty’s chest. Ty couldn’t get under Damien’s shirt fast enough. But sex was still off limits. Ty backed off. “How many more days until you are mine?”

“Eight,” said Kenneth.

“Two hundred and five hours,” Damien’s look was hot, “until Wednesday midnight. You aren’t making me wait longer than that?”

Kenneth stepped up to the bed. “No. The moment you’re eighteen, you are ours.”

Damien lifted his hand and Kenneth took it. He tugged Kenneth onto the bed. “Do you want me too?”

Kenneth gently kissed Damien and then sat up. “I’ll go make breakfast.”

As he stood up he slid his hand over Damien’s belly. Then he kissed Ty. “I’ll call you when food is ready.”

Ty looked back down at the beautiful man in his bed. Or the beautiful man whose bed he was in. “Anything we can do that isn’t illegal or should we just get up?”  

Damien slid his gaze up Ty’s body. At eleven, Ty’s body responded much faster than it had at six. Ty quickly got out of bed. He wasn’t going to risk his future on a quickie. “One week.”

Damien followed him into the kitchen. “Anyway I can help?”

Ty left him there and took a shower. He needed some time alone before he was ready to act like the adult he pretended he was. Which of course would have been easier if Damien hadn’t come in the bathroom. “Lovey, Kenneth wants to know if you want pancakes or waffles.”

Ty grinned. So Damien was the type to use terms of endearment. Two could play at that game and have fun doing it. “Which would you prefer, Adonis?”

Damien pulled back the shower curtain and looked Ty down. “I’d prefer to be in there with you. But since I can’t: pancakes.”

Ty laughed.

Damien nodded. “Yep, pancakes come second to a good shag with Finn McCool.”

He reached in the shower and pulled one of Ty’s curls straight. Then he licked his wet fingers. Ty groaned and pulled the curtain shut. “Give me five minutes.”

Damien laughed as he closed the door. He was a lethal weapon — or at least jailbait — for the next two hundred hours.

Ty eased his ache the best he could. He could never be completely satisfied alone. He walked out of the bathroom in his towel. He’d forgotten to grab clothes like always.

But this time Damien was waiting, tempting him. Ty stepped back in the bathroom and grabbed Kenneth’s towel from this morning. He twisted it up and snapped it at Damien. “Get out of here, Jailbait.”

Damien laughed and jumped on the bed. Ty followed him up and then around the room. His towel was coming off, but Damien was too tempting to stop chasing. The towel lost its battle with gravity in the hall. When he ran into the kitchen he was completely naked. Damien stayed just out of his reach.

“A new fashion statement?” Kenneth eyed Ty.

“Yes,” said Damien. “He looks so good this way.”

Ty came close to almost getting him that time. Damien ran into the dining room. Ty followed. They raced around the table and then the couch then back down the hall to the bedroom. Ty backed Damien up against the bed. Damien fell onto the bed, laughing. He was so beautiful. Ty tossed the towel onto Damien’s face and stepped over to dresser. “One more week and I’ll chase you around the house while _you_ are buck naked.”

Damien wrapped the towel around his neck. “But what if I want to get caught?”

“What? No thrill of the chase, sweetums?” Ty pulled on cargo pants — commando — and a humorous T-shirt. He wasn’t going outside today. “How about I owe you for every minute you stay out of my reach?”

Damien grinned. “And we shag wherever you catch me?”

Ty leaned over Damien and put his hands on the bed on either side of Damien. “When you are legal, all you have to do is asked.”

He got up before he did something he’d regret and turned to the door. He held his hand back and Damien took it like he’d wanted. In the kitchen Ty stopped by Kenneth. “Thank you so much for my wonderful present. I’m going to keep him for always and always.”

Kenneth kissed him, like Ty knew he would. Ty kissed back and caressed Kenneth with one hand, but he kept the other in Damien’s grasp. He licked his lips, stepped back, and slid Damien between them. “Ask for a kiss.”

Damien leaned against him. “From who?”

Kenneth stepped back and flipped a pancake at the stove.

“Either, both.”

 “Why don’t you decide while we eat?” Kenneth stirred a fry pan of hash browns.

Damien looked at the table. “Where do I sit?”

Kenneth pulled three empty plates out of the oven. “Wherever you want.”

Damien frowned. “But where do you sit?”

Ty tugged him to the table and pulled him down on his lap. “Kenneth always sits at the head of the table, but I’m more of a free spirit. I sit here when I want to look out the front window and there,” he pointed at the end of the table, “when I want to look out the side window, and other there,” he pointed to the last chair, “when I don’t want to look out any window.”

“And he eats standing at the counter sometimes,” Kenneth came into the dining room carrying two heaping plates. “And sometimes on the living room floor or out on the porch and once I caught him eating a cheese sandwich in the garage and I asked him why and he said he was feeling purple, which I don’t know if that was good or bad, but he was quite energetic in bed that night, so he can be purple anytime he likes.”

Kenneth kissed the top of Ty’s head. Damien got off Ty’s lap. “Can I help?”

Kenneth gestured to a chair. “Sit, eat. Think about what you want for you birthday dinner.”

Kenneth got his own plate and sat on Damien’s other side. Breakfast was delicious and it was so much better with Damien. Kenneth grinned at Ty like he was the best guy in the world, which he felt this morning. Kenneth gave him the gift of the option of having Damien with them, but Ty’s choice made Kenneth happy too, and Damien as well.

Damien scooped up the last of his eggs. “By birthday food, do you mean on my actual birthday, or the evening leading up to it?”

Kenneth grinned. “Do you have ideas for both?”

Damien did.

Kenneth listened with great attention, but he looked up at Ty from time to time, so Ty knew he was loved. Ty pushed back his plate and dug out a notepad to start a list. “Lysander, Oberon here works weekdays, so breakfast can’t be a feast like this one unless you’re willing to get up at five.”

Damien grinned. “That makes you Puck.” He frowned. “I should look for work. Maybe I can get a job as a barista. I’d probably either open at four am or close at seven pm.”

Kenneth put his hand on Damien’s. “Can you put off looking for a job until after your birthday?”

Damien looked down. “I’ve never not had a job.”

Kenneth gave him that intense look at always heated Ty. “Your job right now is getting to know us. I don’t want to put off your birthday celebration until we all have a day off together.”

Damien bit his lip and nodded. He was cute and sweet and luscious, Ty couldn’t wait to have his fill. He grinned at Kenneth. Ty would get his fill of both of them. He could hardly wait.


	4. Damien's Birthday, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty answers yet another phone call while trying to get the house prepared for tonight

Ty sighed and picked up the phone. Why was everyone calling him when he was trying to get the house ready of their all night orgy?

Kenneth was in charge of planning the actual event, but sheets needed to be changed, dishes washed, the kitchen cleaned, and the floors vacuumed. Ty hated doing regular household chores. Dishes always had to be washed, floors swept, and clothes cleaned. The cycle never ended. Plus he didn’t feel confident in his ability to do any of them well. Kenneth was much better at all of this.

“Hey,” said Flannigan. “Chloë and I wanted to know when you two were coming over.”

Why would they be coming over on a Wednesday night? Was there a birthday or anniversary Ty had forgotten about?

Damien glanced in the doorway before stepping inside. Ty offered his cheek. “Sorry, we have other plans for tonight.”

Damien grinned. Ty pulled him close and the boy molded to him. He would only be a boy for a few more hours. Ty checked the clock. Seven and a half hours.

“But you have to come. We’ve planned it for weeks.”

“Planned what?”

“To make a party out of watching every episode of _that_ show. The season’s starting up again tonight.”

Oh that. “Sorry.”

“We need you. Everyone else bailed on us.”

Damien peeked in the dishwasher then looked at Ty and mouthed, “Clean?”

Ty nodded. “Sorry. I really am, but Kenneth and I forgot about that when we made plans for the second half of our anniversary present.”

“So selfish.” Flannigan laughed. “What did he get you?”

Ty wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Damien. “It’s a surprise.”

“For you or for us?”

Flannigan knew Kenneth all too well.

Damien looked adorable bent over the open dishwasher and his ass was perfection in those tight jeans. Ty leaned against the counter for a better look. “I have an idea what it is, but experiencing it will be better than just knowing it might happen.”

“Will happen,” whispered Damien.

Ty was too uncomfortable to stand still. “I’ve got to go.”

“Are you sure I can’t talk you into coming over?”

“If what I think will happen, happens, I made need a few days to recover.” And that better happen. Only a horrible emergency was keeping Damien out of their bed tonight.

“Don’t you dare call in sick? If you do, I’m sending Mrs. Mitchell over with homemade soup.”

“I love Mrs. Mitchell’s soup.” What he wouldn’t love was her excessive pampering. He was a full grown man and he hated to be babied. Except by Kenneth under the right circumstances.

“Ok, ok. Just promise to tell me about it tomorrow.”

Ty looked over at Damien. “Maybe.”

“I’ll treat you to lunch.” Flannigan always offered this to everyone he wanted a favor from.

“But you forget: I’m not living on a scene shop foreman’s wage.”

“You are living off your sugar daddy.”

“Kenneth isn’t that much older than us.”

“No, but he spend money like it’s water and still has enough to live on. Maybe he’s your sugar cousin.”

“You can talk. You’re living off your wife.”

Flannigan laughed. “Yes, I am. I put her though school and now she’s financing my dream. Fair is fair.”

“True.”

The dryer buzzed in the laundry room. “I’ve got things to do.”

Damien kissed Ty’s cheek. “I’ll get that.”

“Like what?”

“Like clean the house.”

“Why would you need to clean the house? You’re inviting someone over!”

Ty pressed his lips together. Flannigan was too clever by half.

“And, if it were just anyone, say your aunt or Kenneth’s parents, you’d tell me about it, so it’s someone special.”

Way too clever.

“And since you aren’t talking… Does this mean you and Kenneth _are_ becoming one of those gay couples we hear about but don’t actually meet. Are you inviting someone into your bed? To share?”

“Flannigan, I have to go.”

Flannigan laughed. “I knew it. I knew that you two couldn’t be content being like any old hetro married couple. I’m proud of you.”

“Why? You aren’t planning you own extracurricular activities.” Ty was Chloë’s friends at least as much as Flannigan’s.

“Never, the wife would skin me. But it’s not cheating if you both with the same guy at the same time. I live vicariously though you two.”

That was more than he’d wanted to know. “Goodbye, Flannigan.”

“See you tomorrow, Ty. And enjoy your evening.”

Ty planned on it.

 


	5. Damien's Birthday, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien moves one step closer to his permanent place.

Damien carried the stack of folded towels into the master bathroom. He ran his fingers across the mattress on the way back to the laundry room. Tonight he’d sleep in here.

Arms wrapped around him. “How was the job search?”

Damien leaned back against Ty’s strong chest. “I walked in to the right place at the right time. A barista’s mother was just diagnosed with cancer; she got the call at work. She’s hopping on a plane tonight. She left early today, so I worked behind the counter for a few hours. All the manager wanted to see was my ID and food handler’s card. I didn’t even fill out an application until the shift was over.”

“So the jobs yours?”

“Yeah. Temporary is all I really need.” The future would work itself out. It always did.

Ty kissed his head. “You are so cute.”

Damien turned in Ty’s arms. He had no idea what he had done that was cute. “I’m glad you approve.”

Ty licked his lips then sighed and looked at the clock. “This has to be the longest foreplay of my life.”

Damien grinned. He enjoyed the effect he had on Ty. “The longest of my life too.”

Ty took his mouth and he gave himself willingly. Ty was warm and solid and strong and smart and he smelled so good and Damien wanted Ty’s hands on his bare skin. Ty stepped away with a sigh. “Seven hours might as well be a lifetime.”

Damien smiled and leaned against his strong chest. He was delirious with need and lust. But he’d wait the seven hours if that removed all restraints from Ty and Kenneth. He’d find out tonight.

“While you were away…” Ty stepped back. He opened the middle drawer of the tall dresser. “I rearranged the clothes. Kenneth and I talked about it. This is the dresser where we put our under things and t-shirts. The top drawer is mine, the next one’s Kenneth’s and this one’s yours.”

Damien sat down on the bed. He must have heard that wrong. “I thought… I thought you were just bringing my dresser in.”

He finally had enough clothes to need a dresser. Not enough to fill one, but enough that his bag wasn’t big enough to hold everything he owned.

Ty shook his head. “We want you to feel a part of us. This dresser only has two more drawers, but I’ve been looking for one with six. For now you can put you t-shirts in with Kenneth’s. He hardly wears them. He’s a button down kind of guy.”

Ty opened the forth drawer down. Damien got up to look in. It was nearly empty. “What did you have in my drawer before it was mine?”

“The bottom drawer was sweaters we were given as gifts. I don’t wear sweaters and Kenneth only wears them at Christmas. I donated mine and put his in the closet. He isn’t going to need them for ten months.”

“So I’m not putting you out?”

Ty pull him close and then sat on the bed with Damien in his lap. “It wouldn’t matter if you put us out. We want you to change things up. We want you to feel welcome and be a part of us.”

Damien buried his face against Ty’s chest. His eyes stung. No one had ever made Damien feel so at home before. No one had even tried. Ty’s arms were warm and comforting. Damien could stay here forever. He got up. Ty’s shirt was wet where he had leaned against it. “I better move my stuff.”

Ty grinned. “If you need a hand, let me know. The pants dresser is over here.”

He stopped at the low long dresser with two columns of three drawers. “Your drawers are these two.”

He patted the middle two.

Damien took a deep breath. “Thanks.”

Ty wrapped his hands around Damien’s waist. He had huge hands. “Anything you need, you just tell one of us. We are here for you.”

Damien wiped his eyes. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“You do, and you are. You pay us back with the joy you add to our lives.  One week, just eight days and I can’t imagine life without you.” Ty’s mouth lowered onto Damien’s, but his time with more restraint. This was a comfort kiss, not a lustful one, although it was quite sexy enough to harden Damien. He didn’t pull away or withdraw even when his head got fuzzy with lust and need. He was going to let Ty withdraw first; he would stay open as long as Ty wanted him, as long as Ty needed him.

Ty broke the kiss and held Damien close. “You are not like anyone else, my special, special lover.”

He looked at the clock. “I hope Kenneth has plans to keep us busy until midnight. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me. You’re too tempting by half.”

He limped out.

Damien sat on the bed until he had himself under control. Then he gathered up his clothes and brought them in. His socks and underwear drawer looked desolate, but the shirt drawer he shared with Kenneth was much fuller. For a man who hardly ever wore t-shirt he had enough.

He looked through every drawer as he put his clothes away. He’d need to know where the clothes went if he was going to take over doing the laundry. They’d even emptied a couple hangers in the closet for him. Maybe someday he’d have clothes that could be hung up, but for now the drawers would do.

He lay back on the bed and took in the scent of his men.

“What a pretty sight to come home to.”

Damien sat up. Kenneth came in wearing his suit. He took off the jacket and hung it up. “Did you get your clothes to fit?”

Damien bit down his grin. “Without a problem.”

“Which is a problem in itself.” Kenneth sat down beside him and removed his tie. “I took you out shopping last time; Ty will do it this weekend. He frequents different stores than I do. Maybe you’ll like more clothes at them.”

Damien hunched his shoulder. He hadn’t meant to hurt Kenneth’s feeling. He just hadn’t wanted to spend too much of Kenneth’s money. “I have enough clothes.”

“Did you fill your drawers? Did you have to stuff the last couple pairs of socks in? Then you don’t have enough. Ty and I go out with friends. You’ve seen us. I want you to be able to feel comfortable when you’re with us.”

“You’re taking me out?”

“The next big holiday is St. Patrick’s. I plan on introducing you to my parents too. They haven’t been the greatest parents, but they do need to know who is important to me. You are important to me.”

Damien balled his hands into fists and dug his fingernails into his palms, but his eyes still pricked. Kenneth patted his leg. “You are important to both of us. Ty’s aunt makes great pies. But watch out because she‘ll try to overfeed you. Her Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is to die for, but it’s so rich even Ty can only manage one slice at a setting.”

Kenneth planned to have him around for the long haul? His temporary housing was looking more permanent. He hadn’t lived anywhere for more than a few months since his parents house was foreclosed on when he was twelve. Thanksgiving was a lifetime away.

He lay back on the bed. “Kiss me.”

Kenneth smiled and brushed his soft thumb over Damien’s lips. “I’d love to.”

His kiss started slow and grew in heat and intensity until Damien was hotter than an oven, than a kiln, than a volcano. Then then Kenneth pulled back, not looking nearly as mussed up as he should have been.

Damien would have to work on that tonight.

 

 


	6. Damien's Birthday, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth solves a little problem

Kenneth balled up his fist a few times. His arm was asleep and it wasn’t going to wake up until Damien lifted his pretty head from Kenneth’s bicep. Only he was so beautiful, lying there, Kenneth didn’t want to wake him.

But his arm was now screaming in pain.

Kenneth rolled to his side, hoping to slip his arm out without disturbing Damien, but the second he moved Damien was wide awake. Hopefully living in a safe environment would dull that survival instinct. Damien blinked his eyes and sat up. “Wha…what?”

Kenneth rubbed blood into his arm. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Ty opened his eyes and closed them. “Damien, you were keeping me warm.”

Damien frowned. “The blankets are on the floor.”

He leaned forward. Ty wrapped an arm across his lap. “I meant, come back and lie down.”

“But…” Damien’s protest died away when Ty pulled him into his arms.

Kenneth rolled to the edge of the bed, put on his glasses, and got up. All the bedding was on the floor by the bottom Ty’s corner, except for about two inches of sheet that hadn’t given up. Kenneth pulled everything into place and tucked it in around his men.

The black and russet hair went well together, just as Ty and Damien did. They were beautiful and hot and seeing them together made Kenneth hotter than he’d had ever imagined feeling while he watched his lover with someone else.

He touched Damien’s cheek and glanced toward the bathroom. Damien scampered out of bed. Ty lay back. “Do you think he’s up for more? What time is it?”

Kenneth stacked the empty plates on the dresser and uncovered his alarm clock. “Three thirty.”

He slipped on his boxers for the trip into the kitchen. He wasn’t Ty, who liked to be naked. But he did appreciate the view whenever Ty walked around exposed.

Kenneth made a quick pit stop in the hallway bathroom. When he got back into the bedroom, Damien was back in bed and Ty was gone. Kenneth sat on the edge of the bed and touched Damien’s cheek. “How are you holding up?”

Damien turned his head and opened his mouth. Kenneth’s fingers slipped in. Kenneth grinned and closed his eyes. Damien hit all his pleasure buttons without trying. Kenneth moaned. Damien took Kenneth’s free hand and ran it down his chest. Kenneth obliged. Damien was soft and smooth with a hint of strength and he got so very hard under Kenneth’s caress.

“Now that’s what I like to see.” Ty climbed on the bed. “Both of you hard and needy waiting for me to liven things up.”

Damien turned his face away. It was growing pinker by the second.  Kenneth ran his fingers through Damien’s hair then across his hot cheek. “What?”

Damien rolled onto his stomach. “You mind.”

He buried his head in a pillow. Ty frowned at Kenneth and shrugged. Kenneth rubbed Damien’s back. “Do you mean that you don’t stay hard when someone is in you?”

Damien nodded into the pillow then lifted his head without looking up. “It feels so good. I love being entered more than anything. I never wanted you to stop.” He set his hand on Ty’s furry thigh and looked up with pleading eyes. Then he hid his face again in the pillow. “I just can’t… can’t stay up when I feel that good.”

Ty fingered Damien’s hair. “Your pleasure-o-meter shorts out when I rub you all the right ways.”

Ty grinned. But Damien obviously didn’t feel the same or he would have rolled over by now.

“When I was young, I had a similar problem.”

Ty raised his eyebrows. “You don’t have that problem now.”

Damien looked up with a frown. “How young?”

“Nineteen,” Kenneth looked at the ceiling. “Or maybe twenty.”

Damien put his face back into the pillow. “Tell me.”

“My pleasure.” Kenneth straddled Damien’s hips with the blanket between them, gooped up his hands, and started one of those deep massages on Damien that Ty couldn’t sit through. Damien sighed and relaxed. Kenneth breathed in a happy sigh. He liked giving massages. “I learned to give these massages by my first boyfriend. This was in college. He taught me a lot. But mostly to not be ashamed of myself.”

He dug into a particularly tense muscle. Damien gasped and sighed. Massage as foreplay.

“That was a lesson that took me years to fully grasp, which lead to our breakup.” He grinned at Ty. “But I’ve learned to live with that. By the time I met and fell for Ty, I was a much better man.”

He moved on to Damien’s right shoulder. “But back to college. I couldn’t stay hard, no matter what I tried and I felt so ashamed.” He hadn’t been as soft as Damien, but that didn’t matter to the story. Shame was shame. It didn’t need to be justified to be painful. “I feared sex because I knew I couldn’t make him happy. How could he be happy if he couldn’t tell I like what he was doing, and how could he tell that if I couldn’t stay hard.”

Damien nodded into the pillow. “Some guys don’t care. As long as they enjoy themselves.”

Ty kissed Damien’s head. “But we aren’t that kind of men.”

Damien turned his head away. Kenneth shook his head at Ty. Ty bit his lip. “We do care that you enjoy yourself, but we don’t care how. I was just surprised.” He kissed Damien again. “I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable about the way you are.”

Damien mumbled something into his pillow, that might have been, “That’s ok.”

Kenneth moved down Damien’s spine. “I have a question: do you want us to ignore this? Do what we did last time?” Kenneth had really enjoyed keeping Damien hard while Ty thrust into him. When Damien had come, he’d done so magnificently. “Or actively train you to get hard when your prostate is stimulated?”

Damien got up on his elbows and turned and looked at Kenneth. “Is that possible?”

“Well, I can’t guarantee it but I know what worked for me and how much fun it was.”

Damien turned back, but he didn’t put his face down. “What did you do?”

Kenneth moved down to Damien’s beautiful, sweet ass. “Double stimulation.”

Ty laughed. “That sounds like fun.”

“It was.”

“How do you do it?” Damien turned over and Kenneth found his hands on a very hard muscle.

“Lots of ways, but since you are here…”

Damien moaned.

“Would you like me to show you one?”

Damien nodded and relaxed his hips. Kenneth had had few such open invitations. And he did well by it. He kept Damien rock hard with his mouth no matter what first he then Ty were doing inside Damien’s ass.

Damien shuddered and then came. He was so beautiful that Kenneth’s chest ached. A pure and shameless angel lay, newly fallen, in his bed.

Kenneth laid his head on Ty’s hip. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Ty touched Damien’s chest. “I agree.”

Damien’s eyes flittered, but didn’t open. Kenneth covered him and then he moved with Ty to the floor where they finished what touching Damien had started.

Damien was so tired he didn’t wake up when Ty slid under the covers and lay beside him. Kenneth, put his glasses back on and took one final look around the room. What he could live with seeing tomorrow morning? Everything else went into the kitchen. Then he turned out all the light, including the ones in the bedroom and bathroom, and took off his glasses. Damien moaned softly when Kenneth climbed in beside him and he rolled onto his side, his arm over Kenneth’s waist.

Kenneth closed his eyes to the darkness and listened to the gently breathing of his two loves. He let the sounds pull him into sleep.


	7. Valentine's Day, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty's friend Flannigan 'introduces' Ty to Damien.

Ty didn’t open the passenger door when Flannigan pulled up outside Damien’s coffee shop. He had purposely never stopped by because the one time Kenneth mentioned visiting, Damien worried that he’d be distracted from his job if two men as hot as them came by.

“What are you waiting for?” Flannigan stood in front of the car. “You have to see this. My treat.”

Ty got out and followed Flannigan inside. Damien glanced up and smiled. Then he looked back at the coffee he was making, but he didn’t lose his grin.

Flannigan sat at a table in full view of the counter. Ty sat across from him. “I thought you were treating me.”

“I am. I will. But wait until the dark-haired cutie is free.”

Ty glanced at Damien and then raised his eyebrows at Flannigan.

Flannigan rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Don’t tell me he isn’t cute.”

Ty looked Damien over. The counter rose to Damien’s waist, hiding half his assets. “He’s adorable, but what does that have to do with me? Or you for that matter?”

Flannigan gestured with both his hands toward Damien. “Just look at him. Jaron has been looking for a young belle for months. And there he is.”

Ty watched Damien hand a cup to a customer. Damien’s gaze met his and turned to a fellow barista. The person at the counter had just ordered five coffees, all complicated and specific. Damien was adorable and he _would_ look super cute in a ruffly dress. Jaron had been looking for an ingénue since his last one ran off with a divorced father of three. Ty simply couldn’t imagine Martin washing sticky faces, but he had no problem imaging him vacuuming in heels.

But Damien had shown no sign of wanting to do drag. Of course Ty had only known him for six weeks. He hadn’t discovered Kenneth didn’t like orange juice for six months.

“Have you talked to him?” And if Flannigan had, why hadn’t Damien mentioned it? “And doesn’t Jaron want to find his own ingénue?”

“Jaron’s had months. And if we play this right, he’ll think it’s his own idea.”

Ty wasn’t so sure of that.

“We are doing this for him. As friends.”

Jaron’s all drag theater troupe had gone nowhere since Martin left. They made their money adapting fairytales, but nearly every fairytale had a young woman in it and casting an older queen in the role of a young one did not do well with audiences that came to Jaron’s shows.

“And I wanted you to see the cutie before I talked to him. Do you think he’ll do?”

Ty watched Damien for another minute before he forced his gaze away. The man was hypnotic. “First you should ask him if he’s even interested.”

“He will be.” Flannigan hopped to his feet. “Wait here.”

Flannigan walked to the counter. He’d timed his visit perfectly to be helped by Damien.

Damien looked over Flannigan’s shoulder as he talked. But then another customer appeared and Flannigan stepped aside. He followed Damien’s slow progress to the pickup counter and talked to him there.

Damien looked over Flannigan’s shoulder. Ty grinned. Damien was beautiful and he was his. How would Flannigan react when Damien told him? Damien said something and Flannigan picked up the cups and returned to the table. “I think he’s thinking about it.”

Ty looked at Damien. “You think?”

“He gets his break in ten minutes.”

Ty looked at his watch. He didn’t have to be at the fundraiser for another hour. Helping out the theaters he designed for helped his own pocket book. Tonight was a one night only dinner theater for Valentine’s Day. He and Flannigan were doing set up. He hoped to be done and back home not long after Kenneth. He had plans for tonight.

“Come on, Ty. We need him.” Flannigan looked back at the counter. “And I think he has a crush on you.”

Ty looked up. Damien was looking his way. Flannigan looked at his watch. “Seven minutes.”

Ty looked at Flannigan’s huge aviator watch. “That couldn’t have possibly been three minutes.”

Flannigan hid his watch under the table. “It was.”

“You’re reading your watch wrong again.”

Flannigan put his hand to his chest. “Again? Are you trying to slander me?”

Ty rolled his eyes and played along. The actors had had so much trouble with that scene that Ty still remembered all the lines these three years later. Flannigan gesticulated even more than the actor in the original role. Ty was glad when that actor had quit that troupe looking for greener pastures. Soon after the troupe moved on to a bigger theater, so the break had been good for them.

Damien stopped by the table. Flannigan gestured to a chair. “Damien, this is Ty. Ty, Damien.”

Ty raised his eyebrows, but he took Damien’s small, smooth hand. Should he keep pretending not to know Damien? He hadn’t hid him from shame. He just hadn’t talked to any of his friends except Flannigan in the last month and Flannigan always brought up sex, so Ty tried not to mention his home life. Flannigan guessed too much anyway.

“Ty, you can let go now.”

Damien blushed and sat down. Ty looked away. Flannigan laughed. Ty felt his face heat. Damien cleared his throat. “You want me to…”

Flannigan grinned. “Ty here just wants you, but like I said we have a friend who needs an ingénue.”

“That means pretty little thing.” Ty wasn’t sure if Damien understood the lingo.

Flannigan nodded. “A cute, little thing in a dress. You’d wear a dress, wouldn’t you, for extra cash? Two days a week plus a few afternoon practices.”

Damien glanced at Ty. “Is this where you work?”

“Kind of. I’m a scene shop foreman. Flannigan, here, is a Master Painter. We do sets for several theaters. If someone asks for a tree, we get them a tree. Flowered wallpaper for one scene, a night sky for another: that’s us.”

“What would I do?”

Ty held up a hand. “We can’t actually hire you.”

“But,” said Flannigan, “we can put you in Jaron’s path and he _will_ hire you.”

Ty wasn’t so sure.

Damien licked his lips. “What do I need to do?”

Ty wanted to taste those lips.

“Get to know Ty here.”

Ty jumped and turned to Flannigan. Flannigan grinned. “Ty, give him your number. I’ll be back.”

Flannigan disappeared down a hallway.

Damien rested his hand on Ty’s thigh. “I hope you don’t mind. He wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.”

Ty set his hand on Damien’s. “Maybe it’s best if he thinks he introduced us.”

Damien grinned. “But I’m glad someone finally knows about me.”

Ty touched Damien’s back. “I’m sorry.”

Damien shook his head. “I’m happy it’s just been the three of us, but maybe it’s time to expand.”

Ty nodded. He could have sat there all day. They didn’t even need to say anything. He was happy just to be beside Damien. Ten people came in and headed straight for the counter. Damien stood up. “I better help.”

Ty squeezed his hand and slowly let him go.

Flannigan stepped up to the table with a huge grinned. “Did you get his number?”

Ty’s phone went off. The text was from Damien. Ty grinned. He couldn’t wait for tonight either.

Flannigan clapped him on the back. “Good for you. What’s good for the troupes is good for the theater and what’s good for the theaters is good for us.” Flannigan sat down and turned his chair toward the counter. “Are you going to mention him to Kenneth?”

Ty wasn’t about to answer that.

“Because I think Kenneth might be persuaded to stick with the same extra person.”

Ty crossed his arms.

“Come on. You are obviously interested in him, and just look at him. He can’t keep his eyes off you.”

Ty looked up. Flannigan was right. Damien was watching him. Ty smiled. Tonight Damien would do more than watch.

       


	8. Valentine's Day, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth prepares for the evening

Kenneth slowly pulled the car into the garage. Damien’s car was parked by the street, but Ty’s wasn’t in the garage. He checked the flowers in the front seat, but decided to take the balloons in first. He held them behind his back and carefully opened the door to the house. Damien moved clothes from the washer to the dryer. Kenneth took a second to examine Damien’s profile. He really was breathtaking. Damien turned his head. Kenneth held up a hand. “Close your eyes.”

Kenneth negotiated the door into the thin room. He tried to keep the balloons from touching Damien, but some had minds of their own. He carried the balloons into the table. “You can open them.”

Damien stepped into the kitchen and his jaw dropped. “Wow.”

Kenneth wrapped his arms around Damien. “Has anyone bought balloons for you before?”

Damien shook his head. “These can’t be for me.”

Two dozen latex and five mylar balloons did make a huge bunch. “The nice thing about balloons is that you can give them more than once. Now they are all for you. Later when Ty gets back, some can be for him.”

“Ok.” Damien grinned.

 “In the bedroom maybe.” Kenneth slid his hand under Damien’s shirt.

Damien turned in Kenneth’s arms. “Should we?”

“Without Ty, do you mean?”

Damien nodded.

“For now.” How long before they were comfortable enough together that they could have sex in couples instead of all together all the time? He liked both men, but he wanted to celebrate their joys together _and_ separately.

Damien frowned. “You don’t want to.”

Kenneth ran his hands down Damien’s sides. “I want to take you right now.” He sighed. “But you were in the middle of something, and I left the steaks in the car.”

Damien grinned and wrapped his arms around Kenneth’s neck. “You can kiss me.”

So Kenneth did, but instead of being controlled and just until they ran out of breath, he came to himself with Damien’s legs around his waist as he thrust Damien against a wall. He was beyond breathless. He back away. He was almost forty. He shouldn’t be acting like a college student. But Damien moaned and begged and Kenneth gave in. Damien came a moment later.

Kenneth gently let him down, but instead of landing on his feet, he bent to his knees and reached for Kenneth’s belt. Damien looked up. “I am attracted to you.”

Kenneth ran his fingers through Damien’s hair. “I don’t doubt that.”

And then he couldn’t talk. Damien went down on him as beautifully as he did everything else.

Then Damien hopped to his feet with a grin. “I’ve got to start the dishwasher.”

Kenneth followed him into the kitchen and rubbed his ass on the way to the garage. He got the steaks and other groceries out of the car and brought them into the kitchen. Damien kissed his cheek. “Delicious.”

Kenneth wasn’t sure if he meant the steaks or Kenneth, but either way, Kenneth liked his taste.

The flowers were next. Damien walked around the table three times before he reached for the card, which held his name. He opened it. “These are mine?”

“Ty doesn’t like being given flowers.”

“So they are all mine?” Tears filled Damien’s eyes.

The kid cried more than anyone Kenneth knew, but being needed was a nice feeling. He wrapped his arms around Damien and just held him. A relationship was made out of many things, not all flashy or exciting.

After a while Damien pulled back and wiped his eyes. “The washer.”

Kenneth let him go.

Ty would be home soon. Kenneth opened the steak packages and rubbed on the spices he’s prepared yesterday. He’d spent the extra money for unblemished, prewashed potatoes, so they needed only the barest amount of work before he popped them in the oven. Next came the vegetables.

Damien opened the towel drawer and set a stack inside. He glanced at the table. “He won’t mind?”

Kenneth followed his gaze. “My mother brought over flowers the first time she came over as a host gift. Ty and I were newly together and I set them on the table and saw how his eyes lit up. Then his birthday came. We’d been together eight months, and I bought him flowers. That was our first fight.”

He had never felt so helpless. Everything he said and did was wrong.

“Everyone has a first.”

Kenneth nodded. “I thought we were over and in my desperation I called the one person who understood Ty best, his Aunt Millie. She told me not to try to touch him when he’s upset, which didn’t make sense but works. Also when he’s upset, let him talk things out without interruption.”

He tossed the julienned carrots into the salad bowl. “He is also happy in ways that don’t always make sense to me. But somehow I caught onto those much faster.”

“Because he’s happy all the time, but rarely upset?”

“Could be. But just to be on the safe side, maybe you could put the card back on the arrangement.”

Damien laughed and complied. He leaned against Kenneth’s side. “I love you.”

Kenneth grinned. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“But I might have just as many odd quirks as Ty.”

“Such as?”

“Such as when I say, ’I love you.’ I expect to hear it echoed back. If you don’t, I feel less loved.”

Kenneth set down his knife and wiped his hands on a towel. Then he wrapped his arms around Damien. “I have been in love before. Caleb, Ty. So I can honestly say that I feel the same about you.”

Damien rested his forearms against Kenneth’s chest. “Say it.”

“Damien Parzen, I love you.”

Damien leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you.”

A timer went off and they hurried to set the table and finish cleaning up. They both wanted everything perfect when Ty got home.

 

 


	9. Valentine's Day, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien discovers that his and Ty's ways of arguing clash.

Damien greeted Ty at the door with a kiss and then hung up Ty’s coat and took his arm. “Come see the flowers Kenneth bought me.”

Ty dutifully inspected the bouquet. “They smell nice.”

Kenneth laughed from the kitchen. “You don’t want to know how many bunches of roses I had to smell before I found ones with a scent.”

Damien twisted in place, his weight on the balls of his feet and the chair in front of him. This was one of those endearing poses kids did when they wanted something and Damien wanted something or rather two someones.

Ty stroked a lily with a pink center and glanced at Kenneth. In a low voice he asked Damien, “You don’t mind?”

Damien hugged himself. He was too old for that gesture as well, but today he couldn’t stop. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Just because Ty hated getting flowers didn’t mean he had to. “No one has ever given me flowers before. I’ve always wanted to have someone who would give me flowers. Flowers say, ‘I love you’, don’t you think?” That was probably laying it on too thick, but Kenneth was grinning hugely in the kitchen. Damien grinned back. “And now my first Valentine’s Day in a relationship and I get flowers.”

He hadn’t even had to hint.

Ty swallowed hard. “Is this what they mean to you?”

“Kenneth loves me. He even told me so, even if I had to drag it out of him.”

Ty grinned. “So did I.”

Damien was glad to hear Kenneth was normally stingy with declarations of love and not just with Damien.

Ty stepped into the kitchen. “The food smells wonderful.”

They kissed. Kenneth put his hand on Ty’s ginger arm. “I’ll start the steaks. Pass the time with Damien.”

Ty turned to Damien. “What shall we do? I learned a new card trick today.”

Damien wrapped his arms around Ty’s warm, hard body. “I think he had something different in mind.”

He led Ty to the couch and sat down beside him. How to start? Maybe full blast was the best way. He straddled Ty’s lap and set his arms on Ty’s shoulders. “You are so handsome.”

Ty grinned. “So handsome that what?”

“So handsome I might just come from being kissed.” Damien leaned forward and took Ty’s lips. He loved the feel of Ty’s beard against his cheeks, but more against his neck. He slipped his hand under Ty’s shirt so he could get more of Ty’s fur against his skin.

Where Kenneth had been content to kiss, Ty was all for touches. Damien lost his shirt and was halfway to losing his pants when Ty looked up towards the kitchen. He leaned back. “I shouldn’t.”

“Please.” Damien could imagine Ty’s lips against his cock, but what he was hoping for his lips against Ty’s ginger curls. Ty was always so intent to be inside one or the other of them that Damien rarely got to go down on him. “Please, Ty. Make me come with your hands and mouth.”

Ty looked into the kitchen again. “Are you sure he won’t mind? This isn’t cheating?”

Damien sighed. Wishful thinking was sliding away like always. Reality was too cold and harsh to let it live. He wiped his eyes. He would not tear up.  He would not let the tears win.

Why hadn’t they talked about this before, sometime when Damien wasn’t painfully hard? “Being with me can’t be cheating. I’m part of this relationship, aren’t I? Would it be cheating if I went down on Kenneth?”

Ty stood up. “Did you?”

As if that mattered. Damien swallowed an angry sob and pulled his pants back up. “I wanted…” the horrid, hateful tears just wouldn’t stay back. “I wanted a nice time, with just you for once and you are accusing me of cheating on you with my own boyfriend? If that’s breaking the rules, you should have explained that at the beginning. At least Kenneth loves me!”

Damien ran out of the room. Those disgusting tears just had to drip down his face. They couldn’t leave him with his dignity just this once. Of course not.

He dried his face against his old blanket. He’d run to his old room. The first place he’d felt safe that he could remember. And now he didn’t even have that.

He wanted Kenneth to come in and soothe him, but Kenneth was cooking and Damien was eighteen. He shouldn’t want to be coddled, let alone need it.

And why should Ty be so prickly? Why Ty: the reason Damien had come in the first place. Ty the beautiful, glorious man Damien had dreamed about while tending bar. The one he had kissed. The reason he had agreed to move in with them. The only person whose voice hardened him until Kenneth had talked while touching him enough times to also get that response.

If Damien couldn’t have sex with Ty, with either of them, what was the point in living here?

He yanked open the door. Ty and Kenneth were talking in the kitchen. Ty turned around, his brows raised and mouth open, but Kenneth gave Damien a look full of love and trust. Kenneth wouldn’t love him any less if he said what was in his heart and he didn’t have Ty’s love to lose. Maybe he never would. “Do you want me to move out?”

“No!” Ty was at the door before Damien could close it. Ty pushed it open. “You aren’t sleeping anywhere but our bed. Not in this room or a house down the street or in another city. In our bed.”

Damien took a step back, but he wasn’t going to be intimidated by a guy looming over him even if the guy was a drop dead gorgeous ginger. He put his hands flat against Ty’s naked chest. “Our bed: yours, mine and Kenneth’s or yours and Kenneth’s?”

“Ours.” Ty spread his hands. “All of ours.”

“But Kenneth and I aren’t allowed to use it without you? How does that make it mine in any way? Am I just your little plaything? If you’re working or too busy to play, Kenneth can’t play with me? Will he sully your new toy?”

Ty pressed his lips together. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” Damien pushed at Ty’s chest. He didn’t budge. Why couldn’t Damien move him even an inch? “Either I am an adult with a will of my own and in an equal relationship where I can… go down on either of you while the other is at work. Or I’m a pet you have to be around for Kenneth to play with.”

Ty sighed and placed his hands over Damien’s. “I’m sorry.”

Damien wrenched his hands away. “All I wanted was to take you in my mouth and feel your curls against my cheeks and there you go yelling at me because I’d done the same with Kenneth. Why can’t I have sex with him if I see fit? Why can’t you?”

Ty straightened. “Who says I can’t?”

“Logic?” Damien spat the word. “Fairness?”

He had never been so mad in his life. Who was Ty to tell him he couldn’t be with Kenneth if Ty thought that he himself had ever right? Damien really was just a toy. He wiped the horrible tear off his cheek. He wasn’t going to cry again. He wasn’t.

“How’s that? I’m not being fair?”

Damien shook his head. Tears flung out, but at least it didn’t leak down his face. “If you can have sex with Kenneth without me, I can have sex with Kenneth without you. Or you without him. That is only fair.”

“Sure, but—”

“But nothing. Am I one of us or not?”

Ty sighed. “You are. I… I don’t even want to think…” He put his hand over his mouth. “I… I have to think out loud, and when I do, I say things I don’t always mean. I have to hear it so see if it sounds right and I’m afraid I will hurt you even more if I do. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you cry.”

He put out his hand toward Damien’s wet cheeks. Damien turned his face away. Crying was bad enough. Having someone mention the dreaded tears was much worse.

Kenneth appeared in the doorway. “The steaks are resting. I wonder if anyone else could use a hug.”

Damien could not get into his arms fast enough. Kenneth rubbed his back. “Thank you. It hurts to hear people I love fight.”

Damien let out a shaky sigh. “We had a row.”

“Sorry,” said Ty.

“How about we say,” Kenneth’s hands were sure and strong, “asses are off limits when we aren’t all three together. Can we agree to that?”

Damien nodded.

“Ty agrees too.”

“Sorry,” said Ty. “I nodded. No asses, but everything else is fair game, but if someone feels jealous, we talk about rules and make changes.”

Damien gathered strength to stand on his own. The tears had receded. “But no rule change when anyone has a hard on. That just wasn’t fair.”

He shifted himself in his pants, but he still ached. Getting angry hadn’t softened him at all.

A timer went off. Kenneth smiled. “Dinner unless we aren’t done.”

Food would definitely soothe the soul. Kenneth served up everything beautifully, but dinner wasn’t as fun as usual. Ty played with his food. When he otherwise would have already eaten half his food and onto his second or third anecdote about theater people, he sat down his fork. “Damien, are you sure this wasn’t about me not acknowledging you in public?”

Damien raised an eyebrow. “You think that I would get so mad that you didn’t tell Flannigan you knew me after I didn’t tell him the same thing that I would come home and seduce Kenneth? Do you normally have sex with someone because you are angry with someone else? I don’t.”

How could Ty even think that?

“What’s this?” Kenneth picked up his glass with his usual grace and elegance. He wasn’t angry or jealous, just mildly curious.

“Flannigan took me to Damien’s coffee shop to show me an ingénue Jaron just has to hire.”

“Which,” Damien sat down his cup, “just happened to be me. Flannigan talked Ty up as if he were matchmaking.”

“He’s guessed that we’ve had someone in our bed. But he doesn’t know that it’s always been Damien.”

“And we let him introduce us.”

Kenneth nodded. “Which will keep everyone from realizing that he moved in with us at seventeen.”

Damien bit his lip. Was Kenneth still worried about that?

Ty nodded. “But he and Chloë plan to invade our house to dress Damien up.”

“When?”

Ty shrugged. “Next week maybe. He doesn’t know Damien already lives with us.”

Damien could pretend he was still sleeping in the spare room if they wanted him to.

Kenneth grinned. “As long as it’s not tonight. It’s Valentine’s Day. I have plans for tonight.”

As a matter of fact, so did Damien. Did Kenneth have handcuffs strong enough to hold Ty in that bag of goodies he’d brought home?

Damien couldn’t wait to see.


	10. St. Patrick's Day, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien gets ready to meet Ty and Kenneth's friends

Damien sat in front of the vanity mirror in the spare room. Chloë rubbed his shoulders. "Are you ready?"

Damien took a deep breath. He had been out dancing in finery with Kenneth several times, but today he was going to meet Kenneth and Ty's friends all dressed up. Chloë was great and Flannigan was ok. What would their other friends be like? "As ready as I'll ever be."

Chloë grinned at him in the mirror. "Don't worry. You don't have to work for Jaron if you don't want to."

Damien turned to look at her. "Do you think he'll offer me the job?"

"I'm going to put my soul into it. But that's just me."

He was sure she would. Damien had known Flannigan's wife for less than a month, but he'd never seen her give less than her all.

"Off with the shirt."

Damien pulled off his tank top and tossed it on the bed. Chloë lifted it off the clothes she'd laid out and folded it. She draped a cloth around his shoulders to protect the lacy underthings he already wore. They were the foundation, Chloë said, and the makeup was the armor. The dress wouldn't go on until his face was complete.

He pulled the wig sock over his hair. "I'm not good at drag."

Chloë poured foundation into her palm and dabbed a triangle sponge into it. "You don't have to be."

"What if Jaron thinks I'm a girl?"

Chloë motioned for him to shut his mouth. The makeup went on wet but dried quickly to a powder. "I know women that would kill for that problem. Would that bug you?"

"I guess not." The other dancers at the place Kenneth took him thought he was female. Kenneth said that the polite thing was to dance with more than the person you came with. And while Kenneth was busy doing his duty, Damien never lacked male partners. 

He was fine with that, but Ty didn't let his eyes linger on Damien or find excuses to touch him when Damien was in a dress. Kenneth, on the other hand, had seduced Damien the first time he'd tried on the thigh highs and corset with garter and the lacy underwear.

Ty hadn't joined them until Damien was bare.

Damien glanced in the mirror while Chloë wiped her hands and picked up the eye makeup. He didn't look like a woman yet.

Chloë touched his chin. He looked back at her.

"Are you worried that Jaron will hire you or that he won't?"

"I..." he licked his lips.

"Stop that!" She blotted his lips dry. "At least until I'm done. Then you can be as sexy as you like."

"I'm sexy in the way a girl is?

Chloë smiled. "Close your eyes. Or the way a gay boy is? I don't know as I'm not attracted to either. But when you're excited you act young, which can come off as feminine." Her brushes were feather soft, but boy were there a lot of them. "I'm done."

Damien looked in the mirror. His eyes looked bigger and brighter, but he was still him. "Am I supposed to look like a real girl?"

Maybe if he wore over-the-top makeup, Ty wouldn't avoid him.

"Jaron doesn't need another queen. He has plenty of those."

"But what about men my age who like to dress up?

"Do you?"

Damien pressed his lips together. "I don't hate it," except for Ty reaction to it, "but maybe someone would like it more. I don't want to put anyone out of a job."

The barista, whose job he'd taken over, was moving back to live with her mother. He had that job as long as he wanted it.

Chloë grinned. "Think about this as temporary. The moment someone asks for the job, you can step aside. Have you thought about your personae? Look up."

Damien complied. "I... I don't know."

Everything he'd thought up was just a caricature.

Chloë powered in his eye brows. "Flannigan will make something up if you don't. Tonight you aren't Damien Parzen. You are someone else. Like Halloween. I've been told it's freeing."

How could anything be considered freeing if it made his gut clinch? What if he came up with a bad story and had to live with it?

Chloë patted his shoulder. "Freedom is scary. All freedom is. Freedom to succeed is freedom to fail."

Or starve to death. "I don't want to fail."

"Neither do I. Flannigan's dream job relies on the theaters and clubs he works with being successful and Jaron's troupe is barely scraping by. But he rakes it in when he has a pretty ingénue."

That was going to be Damien if he could pull it off. "I want Ty to be happy too."

"So tell me your name."

Damien sucked in a breath. "I'm Deedee Pine and I'm eighteen years old. Or should I be nineteen?"

Chloë didn't know how young Damien was, only that he was under twenty-one. Ty and Flannigan had arranged the St. Patrick's Day party to start at a pizza place, go to a all ages dance, and move to a bar late in the evening. Damien would be tired of the heels by that time anyway.

Chloë cocked her lips. "Eighteen is best. Ingénues are very young."

"I can be," Damien winked slowly, "eighteen."

Chloë laughed. "That's perfect. Just on the edge of legal, but no one's quite sure which side."

"I from a small town, but just moved to the city and I'm on my own for the first time."

That was about as far from his own story as he could get.

"Say you have a roommate, so no one gets pushy or follows you home." She opened the cloth around his shoulders and put foundation on his neck and the parts of his chest that would show.

"Do you think that's likely?"

"Just say you're with someone and you'll be fine."

He hoped so. He hadn't had a problem when Kenneth took him dancing, but they'd obviously been together. Dancing in heels was actually easier than dancing in men's shoes. The man at the shoe store hadn't even batted an eye when Damien bought his pretty gold dancing shoes.

Damien glanced in the mirror. He was still Damien. His cheeks were more defined and he was totally symmetrical.

"Now the lips." Chloë dabbed on the color. "Deedee."

Chloë grinned. "Now turn toward the mirror. What does Deedee want to be when she grows up?"

He didn't look like himself. He was a girl. "I've always wanted to be on stage. I don't expect to ever star, but if I could just be one of the girls in the back, my life would be complete."

Damien put his palms together in front of his chest and filled his lungs with air.

"Perfect." Chloë pinned the curly black wig on Damien's head. The wig was to just below his shoulder blades and looked like a perm popular on TV show older than he was. Did women nowadays even wear their hair like this?

Maybe this would set him apart from real girls. He wasn't really trying to pass.

Chloë helped him into the petticoats then had him twirl to make sure they were lying correctly. She nodded. "Now the dress."

Because today was St. Patrick's Day, or would be at midnight, the dress was green. Like with everything else Chloë had done to get him ready for today, he hoped she knew what she was doing.

The neckline was low enough to show the hint of cleavage the undergarments were meant to promote. The first time Chloë had laced him in and adjusted him, she'd talked about duct tape and binding, and all the other things she'd worked with when she'd dolled up queens in high school. That comedy club's back room was where she'd met Flannigan.

The dress's skirt was full and the bodice fit over the corset like a second skin. Damien looked more like one of those debutantes from a fifties movie than a living breathing woman of today.

He spun. He couldn't help it. The petticoats flared, showing off the shamrocks on his thigh highs and the dark green petticoat under the light green one under the white.  All that green fabric and white lace. "I'm beautiful."

Chloë grinned. "Of course you are. Now sit."

Damien reached for his street heels. Chloë brushed his hands away. "Don't touch anything. No buckles or straps until we get there. Not even then. Your nails have to stay perfect."

Chloë had insisted on taking him out to get them this morning. She said fingers and shoes made the woman.

"Now for a surprise."

Damien put his hands together and bounced on the chair like Deedee would if told of a surprise. And truthfully what Damien would do if Kenneth mentioned one. Ty's surprises could be anything from eating out to a new card trick, but Kenneth's surprises always ended in hours of pleasure and sleeping through the first ten minutes of his alarm.

Chloë sat a hat box on Damien's lap. He smiled up at her and opened it carefully, mindful of his fingernails.

He should have practiced eating in them.

The hat inside was beautiful. Chloë lifted it and set it at an angle on Damien's head. "How do you like it?"

"It's very pretty. How should I wear it?"

Chloë played with it, but settled on in the middle tilting back because it looked the most innocent that way and that was the look they were going for.

Damien got up and looked himself over in the full length mirror. Could he pretend to be someone else for hours at a time? Kenneth had confidence in Damien's acting ability since he could look happy and entertained by even boring drunks.

Ty had said acting ability had never been a factor in Jaron picking his cast. They were all good, but his income didn't rely on perfect acting.

Chloë pulled off her sweat pants and shirt and on the dress she was wearing to the party. Hers wasn't nearly was fancy as Damien's. She turned her back to him. "Could you-- no you can't. Not with those nails. I'll have Flannigan do my zipper."

She put her hand on the door. "He has the most outlandish views about my skin. Helping you into your underwear is totally understandable. You seeing my skin is a scandal."

Damien put his finger to his lips, careful not to touch them, and winked. Chloë laughed and ducked out the doorway. If she was pretending she'd changed in the bathroom, she should have taken her clothes with her.

Damien turned in place and bent his knees for greater skirt flair. Even if he didn't get offered the job, he was going to have fun tonight.


	11. St. Patrick's Day, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth plays his part in Ty and Flannigan's plan.

Kenneth tried to follow his table companion's conversation without taking his eyes off Damien. Maybe he should dance with him again. Kenneth had always known at some level that women were beautiful, but he'd never felt it in his loins until he'd seen Damien in drag.

He wanted to peel those clothes off him slowly so he could dawn out the pleasure as long as possible. Once he'd kept Damien in his thigh highs for more than an hour, hoping Ty would join them. Ty hadn't, but since he was in the room, watching, Kenneth could enjoy every inch of Damien and he did.

Damien's dance partner finally let him go. That boy was much too possessive. Maybe he realized Damien would walk away the moment he turned his back.

Damien's face shone and his eyes were bright. He loved to dance. This place gave lessons before dancing started. Kenneth and Damien had been to several. Some nights they pushed the table aside at home and dance on the dining room floor.

Kenneth put out a hand. Damien took it. Kenneth pulled Damien onto his lap with the flick of the wrist. Damien laughed and wrapped his arms around Kenneth's neck. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweetums."

Damien laughed again. His makeup was wearing off. Chloë would intervene as soon as she noticed, but until then Kenneth might just be able to kiss Damien without getting any lipstick on himself. He pulled Damien closer. He risked the red stuff for a nice willing kiss that made promises for the future.

"What's this?"

Kenneth reluctantly leaned back. Chloë was bearing down on them. Damien wiped at Kenneth's lips. Kenneth nodded to Jaron. "Hello."

Jaron frowned. "Does Ty know?"

He looked around. Chloë offered Damien a damp towelette. "Of course he does. Deedee here is their third."

Damien wiped Kenneth clean and blew a kiss. Chloë dragged him off.

Jaron sat down. "That is a lie. You might be bi, but Ty is a six if I've ever met one."

Kenneth shrugged. "That would imply that my fair companion was female."

Jaron frowned. "Deedee doesn't sound male."

"Isn't the convention to call a queen by her stage name and refer to her with feminine pronouns when she's in a dress? Although my little one is more of a princess."

Jaron stood up. "She's in drag? Where’d she go?"

Kenneth gestured to Jaron's chair. "Chloë has taken her to the restroom to fix her makeup. That takes a while."

Jaron sat. "Is she willing to work? Does Ty know? Why didn't he tell me he knew an ingénue?"

Ty's stood in the doorway, looking sexy in a green kilt and green vest with no shirt. Kenneth needed his hands on Ty. That's how he'd end tonight. "Ty doesn't approve."

Jaron stood again. "What right does Ty have not to approve?"

"The right of any lover. Damien spends his nights in our bed."

Jaron grunted. "At least I'll know where to find my newest actress. I'll give Ty a piece of my mind."

Jaron strode up and laid into Ty. Flannigan came to his rescue. Jaron pulled out his phone and walked outside. Ty and Flannigan high-fived each other.

Kenneth got up and made his way to the restrooms. He put out a hand and pulled Damien close before any of the young men could claim him. "May I have this dance?"

Damien nodded and took Kenneth's arm.

They stayed on the dance floor until the rest of the group left for the bar.

Then Kenneth took Damien home where they could do a different kind of dancing.


	12. St. Patrick's Day, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty comes to grips with his feelings

Ty grinned at everyone and everything. This was his new permanent expression. Jaron wanted Damien for his troupe. He had scheduled rehearsals for Monday and mingled in the crowd to make sure all his players knew that.

Flannigan clapped Ty on the back. "Have another!"

Ty shook his head. He was nursing this drink — a White Russian despite the holiday — for the last hour. He had men to get home to, but he wanted to wait until Kenneth had Damien out of the dress.

Tara, in full regalia, sat down on the stood beside Ty's. "Jaron says we have an ingénue."

Ty nodded.

"He says the kid's living with you. Why didn't you bring her along?"

"I did. To pizza and dancing."

Tara smacked Ty's arm. "You know I don't like dancing with so many rules."

Her eyes sparkled. She looked like no one so much as Ty's aunt's best friend. Tara would kill him if he ever said that.

"Why didn't you bring her here? I want to see this princess Jaron keeps going on about."

Ty pulled out his phone and flipped to a picture he'd taken earlier this evening. Tara grabbed the phone and did that close to face, far away thing that people who wore bifocal did. "Cute. How long's she been dressing up?”

"Not long."

"Do you have any other pictures? I may need to be a diva about this."

Ty shook his head. Flannigan ordered Tara another drink. "I have some."

Flannigan had a dozen or so hard copies of Damien in the spare room walking, sitting, and talking to Chloë . Despite the wig, makeup, and dress Ty could still see Damien in his mannerisms.

Tara seized the one of Damien looking over his shoulder while standing in front of the full length mirror. "I will go full dive."

Flannigan handed Tara a drink. "If you are nice to her, she'll look up to you."

"No one is that young and innocent." Tara downed her drink.

"She isn't here," Flannigan said, "because she's that young. Plus she's all alone in a big city for the first time."

Ty covered his snort with a cough. Damien was being taken care of for the first time. Flannigan eyed Ty. "Don't you agree?"

Ty lifted his glass. "To beautiful young things who think I'm the hottest guy on earth."

Tara laughed and took a drink. She set her empty glass down. "She must be very young if she thinks you're hot."

Flannigan laughed. "Sad, but true. She does."

"And she'd living at your house? What does Kenneth think about that?"

Ty looked in his glass. It was empty. He wasn't going to have another. "He's busy peeling her out of her dress."

Tara raised her already high eyebrows. "Do tell."

Ty stood up. "I should probably go help him."

Tara grabbed Ty's arm. "Tell me, please." She held up the picture. "Tell me her unders are so tight she can barely breathe."

Flannigan handed her another drink. "Ty could wrap his hands around Damien's waist and touch fingertips before Damien ever became Deedee."

Flannigan made a circle out of his thumbs and forefingers. His hands were significantly smaller than Ty's huge ones and gave the impression Damien had a very tiny waist.

Tara hit Flannigan's arm. "No."

Ty slipped away. A cheer rose up signifying midnight. Irish Appreciation Day could officially begin.

Friends interrupted his path to the door. They all wanted to hear about Damien. He sent most of them to Flannigan, but answered the question of where Damien slept himself.

Flannigan was sure to tell his version, but Ty wanted the censored version out there first.

At the car, he was waylaid again, but this was only a reminder of his promised bordello wallpaper for a back drop. He renewed his promise. If he couldn't buy it, he'd paint it with textured and matte paints.

The streets were nearly empty, but he drove the speed limit. The police would be out in force this weekend.

The lights were still on when he pulled up. Hadn’t Kenneth gotten Damien into bed by now?

He opened the door to music. The table was push against the wall and Damien swung in Kenneth's arms.

Ty closed the laundry room door and leaned on it. At least Damien had removed his makeup. The wig sat on the table. Chloë would freak. Good wigs cost a small fortune.

Kenneth wore the hat at a rakish angle and still looked handsome as ever. He could pull off any look.

But Damien was still in the dress and high heels. Kenneth swung Damien out and back against his chest. He grinned at Ty.

Ty tried to grin back.

He picked up the wig and carried it into the spare room. Wig stands always creeped him out. They only looked happy wearing a wig. He set the wig on the only empty stand. "Happy now?"

He turned and leaned against the door frame.  As Damien twirled, his skirts raised and flashed the top of his thighs. His petticoats were gone and the garter things didn't hang down. Was he wearing any of the underthings that changed his shape?

Ty stepped closer. Kenneth twirled Damien toward Ty. Ty caught him and held him close. He smelled good, like always, and his body was hard without being stiff. The only thing between Ty's hands and Damien's skin was the thin fabric. Good.

"I don't know how to dance." Ty swayed side to side. Damien's heels lifted him to a convenient height to cuddle. Ty could stay this way all night.

Damien laid his cheek against Ty's shoulder. "I like this kind of dancing too."

Ty closed his eyes and ran his hands down Damien's back. He wasn't wearing anything under the dress.

Kenneth changed the song to something slow and leaned against the table. His eyes smiled. He had done his on purpose. He'd removed everything that triggered Ty's discomfort and confusion.

"I love you." Both of them.

Damien leaned back from the waist. "Even when I'm in a dress?"

Ty pulled him back to his chest. "I always love you. And I've never had problems with queens before. But," he glared at Kenneth, "I've never been attracted to one before."

Damien leaned back and raised an eyebrow. "Never?"

"Even the one who are cute out of drag don't do anything for me in a dress."

"But I do?" Damien looked up. He was adorable.

"You, all made up, made me feel that maybe my parents were right. Maybe there is a woman out there somewhere who could turn me on."

"Not out there." Kenneth said. "Right here."

Damien rubbed against Ty. "I quite like being the only person in a dress you're attracted to."

Ty pulled Damien's dress up his legs. Kenneth nodded to the living room. Ty nodded to the table. Kenneth slipped down the hall and returned with a tablecloth. He opened it and covered the table.

Ty swayed Damien to the table and lifted him up, making sure he landed without any fabric underneath his ass.

Damien spread his legs. Ty stepped between them. Ty was going to have sex for the first time with someone in a dress. And he planned to enjoy himself.


	13. Easter, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien isn't so sure he wants to fly across country to visit Ty's aunt.

Damien stared at the socks in his hands. “Are you sure you want me to come?”

Kenneth set the towel he’d just folded on the table and touched Damien’s arm. “You are important to us. We want you there.”

Damien mated another pair of socks. He’d tried not to think about this trip since he’d first heard about it. He didn’t want to be alone in the house for three days, but he wasn’t ready to stay with family. What if Ty’s aunt didn’t like him? “What does she know about me? She can’t want me in her home.”

“He wants you there.”

Ty and Kenneth spent every Easter with Ty’s aunt. This year was no exception. But what kind of woman would want the second lover of the man she raised to spend the night in her house?

Going over for a meal would have been different, but Ty’s aunt lived across the country. They would fly both ways and spend two nights. If things went wrong, Damien couldn’t just go home.

Ty’s aunt knew Ty and Kenneth were together and, according to Kenneth, she approved for Ty’s sake. She loved him enough for that. But how could she love him enough to accept Damien the way she had Kenneth? “I’ll just stay home.”

Kenneth rubbed his arm. “Ty isn’t going to like that.”

“That’s why I told _you_.”

Kenneth smiled.

Damien turned away. “I know what he wants, but he has an optimistic view of life.”

Kenneth sighed. “Ty was born out into a family of homophobes. His aunt Amelia took him in when he was about twelve. His parents had decided to send him to reparative therapy to ‘cure’ him of his way of speaking, his hand gestures, his love of skirts, all the things that make him Ty.”

Those were the things that first drew Damien’s attention. Ty in a kilt was glorious. So was his voice and the way his hands moved when he spoke. Listening to him was heaven. Being touched by him was even better.

“She says forcing a child to be something they aren’t, or not something they are, is torture and she loves him too much for that. Ty has made her prove that love over and over. Raising a boy like Ty in the South couldn’t have been easy. But she defended him against all attacks, both verbal and physical, and never once told him to change who he was.”

She sounded like a nice person, but…

“Ty expects his aunt to accept you, like she accepted me, as a way of showing her love.”

No one in Damien’s life had ever love someone else for his sake. Very few were willing to tolerate Damien. Kenneth and Ty and the people he’d met through them where the few who acted like they wanted him around. “What if she doesn’t like me?”

“She’ll like you.”

“But what if she doesn’t? What if she makes a scene? Maybe I should wear drag. I could go as the girl you rent a room to.” Being rejected as Deedee wouldn’t hurt as much.

“Ty isn’t going to lie to his aunt. He loves her too much for that.” Kenneth kissed Damien's ear.

Damien held a towel against his chest. He was coming apart inside. “So he’s going to tell her I’m your lover and then she’ll take us to church and we’ll sit down to a meal and pretend she doesn’t see me as less?”

Kenneth wrapped his arms around Damien from behind. Damien leaned into the hug. He couldn’t take rejection from Ty’s important person. What if Ty’s aunt’s rejection caused Ty to rethink having Damien in his life.

Kenneth kissed Damien’s head. “He’s already told his aunt about you.”

Damien put his hand over Kenneth’s and held it closer to his chest. ”About us?”

“Yes.” Kenneth rested his chin on Damien’s shoulder. His breath tickled D’s neck. “He told her you are one of us.”

“But did she understand? What one-of-us means?” Having Ty’s aunt think Damien was just a boy they took in might be worse than outright rejection.

Kenneth rubbed his lips against Damien’s neck. Damien relaxed against Kenneth. He was willing to let this conversation go. He didn’t want to know the answer anyway.

He set the towel down and turned, rubbing his cheek against Kenneth’s. When his lips touched skin, he started kissing. He released all his anxiety and worry over Easter and let the joy of skin on skin fill his soul.

Kenneth was tender but thorough. All cares were far away in his arms.

They made it to the couch, eventually.

Damien leaned back against Kenneth’s chest and closed his eyes. “If he wants me to go, I’ll go. I can sleep on the floor or something.”

Kenneth laughed, stroking Damien’s side. “We’ll all be on the floor. Ty’s room still has his old twin bed in it. She always offers us the hideaway in the den, but we opt for a door that closes. It doesn’t lock. She used to make him leave the door open when he had friends over.”

Damien tilted his head up. “Really?”

“Yes.”

Did parents really do that anymore? Only maybe they didn’t. Ty hadn’t been a teenager in over a decade. “But she doesn’t make you two leave the door open?”

“We move the trunk in front of the door. Sometimes she forgets Ty doesn’t need woken up in the morning.”

“Has she ever come in?

Kenneth grinned. “I think she was more embarrassed than we were—than I was. Ty slept through the whole thing.”

Damien laughed. “Ty does like his sleep.”

“That he does. And his food. He’ll be home soon.”

Damien leaned forward so Kenneth could get off the couch. He was making enchiladas tonight. Even the sauce was homemade.

Kenneth straightened his clothes. Damien didn’t bother. He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. “Have Ty wake me when he gets home.”

Kenneth laughed. “Looking like that he couldn’t resist.”

Damien grinned. He liked being irresistible.

He let the clink of pots and Kenneth’s gentle movements in the kitchen lull him to sleep.

He dreamed of different ways Ty would wake him, but whatever Ty picked would be even better.


	14. Easter, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty arrival at his aunt's house with Kenneth and Damien doesn't go as expected

Ty opened the door without knocking. Why wasn’t Aunt Millie on the doorstep to welcome them with hugs and kisses? He set his bags by the couch, checked to make sure his men had followed him in, and went to find Aunt Millie. “We’re here.”

“Come in, come in.” Aunt Millie said from the dining room. She had the phone cord extended as far as it would go. She rolled her eyes and pointed at the phone. “Yes, of course. I know—No, that’s—All right, I can—No, I—”

This must be one of the ladies from church. They could always railroad Aunt Millie into anything by never letting her get a word in edgewise.

Ty leaned close to the phone. “Aunt Millie. We’re home and we’re starving.”

“Nancy, my nephew and his friends just arrived all the way from Oregon. Yes, I know—”

“Really, really hungry.” Ty took the phone from his aunt. “Mrs. Marsh, it’s nice to hear from you. I’ll see you Sunday. You’re still in your old pew? I’ll see you there.”

He hung up the phone before she could say anything else.

Aunt Millie sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do that. I have to live with these people you know.”

“Only because you refuse to move to civilization.”

Aunt Millie grinned and slapped his arm. “My boy.” She took him in her arms and squeezed him tight. “I’ve missed you so.”

He hugged her back. He loved her and the house, but he could have stood to live without the neighbors, the church, and the rest of town. He hadn’t been able to really breathe until he moved away and now that he knew what a full breath felt like, every second in the town was stifling.

“Come meet my men. If you keep hiding in the kitchen, Damien will think you don’t like him.

“Of course I like him. He’s your friend.”

Aunt Millie used friend to mean everything from almost strangers to lovers. She pulled Kenneth into a hug. The phone rang. Aunt Millie sighed. “That never-ending noise.”

“I’ll get it.” Damien shot Ty a glance as he headed into the kitchen. Aunt Millie watched him go then turned and asked Kenneth about his work.

Ty followed Damien into the kitchen. Damien had the phone to his ear and he was answering in monosyllables using that slow, soft voice he used on stage. He covered the receiver. “I’ve got this.”

And then he grinned. Ty kissed his neck and left him to it. Damien hadn’t seemed as upset with Aunt Millie’s rudeness as Ty would have been. She should have let Ty introduce her to Damien before she greeted Kenneth.

Ty went back into the living room. Aunt Millie had some explaining to do.

“So please don’t ignore him.” Kenneth concluded.

Aunt Millie pressed her lips together. “I know I shouldn’t, but he looks so young…”

Ty wrapped his arms around her. “Is that any reason to not give him your best dose of Southern hospitality? Especially seeing he’s keeping you off the phone.”

Aunt Millie patted Ty’s arms. “Are you really hungry or were you giving me an excuse to get off the phone?”

“Both!”

Aunt Millie bustled into the kitchen. “I’ve made you fresh squeezed lemonade and warm biscuits. Help yourself while I get dinner on.”

Ty pour a glass for Kenneth and took another to Damien. Damien grinned and took a sip. “Sorry, I don’t know where that is. No, I don’t know a Amelia Edwards either. This is her phone? Then I must have the wrong number. Sorry.”

He hung up. “One. Two. Three.”

The phone rang again. Damien smiled like he’d been waiting all day for this call. “Hello.”

He covered the receiver. “Someone else.”

Then he sat on the stool and listened. Damien shouldn’t have to answer the phone. He should be the guest of honor. Aunt Millie should be doting on him like Damien deserved.

If Aunt Millie wasn’t going to do it, Ty would. He stepped up behind Damien. Damien flicked him a grin and lean against his chest. Ty rubbed Damien neck. More would have to wait until later.

Kenneth helped Aunt Millie remove a cast iron skillet from the overhead rack. “You are very popular today.”

Aunt Millie sighed. “The fundraiser minister, Joseph Knowles, you remember him, don’t you, Ty?”

She turned to Kenneth. “He was the youth minster when Ty was a boy. His wife died, if I recall, about five years ago. The senior ministers asked him to look for another wife and went so far as to invite him and a different woman his age to dinner once a week. After he declared he’d never marry again, they moved him from youth pastor to fundraiser because you don’t need a wife to raise money.”

She sighed. “Well, last night he handed in his resignation, which Pastor Featherstone refused to accept because they want to build onto the church this summer and the more money the nicer the addition. Pastor Knowles said he was leaving with or without Pastor Featherstone’s permission. And we found out this morning that he hadn’t left alone. He went with that nice Mr. Aims who doesn’t treat us ladies like our heads are filled with fluff when we complain that our cars sound funny. What am I going to do now if my car acts up? Edith was putting off having the rattle in her car looked at until after Easter, so she could afford that dress she just had to have. Now she’s going to have to take her car to that odious Mr. Rex.”

Aunt Millie shuddered. Mr. Rex wasn’t any worse than any other mechanic, but Mr. Aims didn’t smell like old gasoline when not at work, was friendly, and listen to women and small boys. He’d fixed Ty’s bike once when the guy at the bike shop refused to look at it. Ty had paid him with Aunt Millie’s cookies.

“Everyone just has to talk about it. Thank you Damien for taking over the phone.”

Ty pointed at the skillet. “Thank him with real southern cooking. He’s never had homemade fried chicken before.”

“Then he’s never had fried chicken.” Aunt Millie carried a bowl of chicken parts to the counter. “We’ll have to fix that.”

The way to a man’s heart might be through his stomach, but the way to Aunt Millie’s was to eat her cooking. After the long flight and the anxiety, Damien would do her cooking justice.

Aunt Millie slapped a chicken leg into the flour with enough force to send a white puff into the air. “Speaking for fixing things, if we’d just been more welcoming to people like you, Mr. Aims wouldn’t have had to leave to be with Pastor Knowles.”

She sighed. Ty stepped away from Damien and kissed her cheek. Selfishness as a step towards tolerance? If Aunt Millie could convince her friends, then his weekends in town would be more pleasant.


	15. Easter, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth arranges the room at Aunt Millie's.

Kenneth dragged the inflatable mattress into the empty space Ty was making on his old bedroom floor and unrolled it. He opened the valve and let it self-inflate.

Ty grinned and his eyes drank Kenneth in. He opened his mouth then closed it and looked at the doorway.

His aunt chatted away as she walked in with Damien. She carried a pile of ironed sheets and he had two quilts. She stopped mid sentence and frowned at Ty. “Why did you cover your bed with junk?”

Ty had made space on the floor, like he always did, by moving most of the stuff to the only clear, flat surface:  the bed. Ty opened his mouth. Damien shook his head. Ty closed it. Kenneth stepped forward and took the sheets from Ty’s aunt. “Miss Amelia, I wish I’d known you wanted to change the bedsheets. The mattress could have waited.”

“No. No.” Ty’s aunt bustled about the room, straightening things and tucking others away. The room wasn’t really big enough for the twin bed, night stand, desk, chair, dresser, queen sized mattress and four people.

Three would be fine, especially if they were all on the mattress.

Ty’s aunt ripped the sheets off the twin and put on new ones. These were less faded then the ones she’d just removed, but otherwise the same. She changed the quilt to the one she’d been working on last year.

“Miss Amelia, is that a new quilt?”

Ty’s aunt blushed. “I know he won’t be able to tell in the dark, but Damien is too much of an angel to sleep in old bedding.”

Ty opened his mouth. Damien shook his head. Kenneth touched Ty’s arm. “Why don’t you get our luggage while I make the bed?”

Damien took Ty’s hand and led him out of the room. Kenneth kept Ty’s aunt busy with small talk so Ty and Damien could say what they needed to say.

Ty’s aunt stood up with a sigh and fluffed an already fluffy pillow. “That looks nice. Are you ready for dessert? I have pecan pie.”

Damien came in without looking up, his bag held tight against his chest. Ty followed with the straps to his and Kenneth’s bags clenched in his fists.

They would need some time. “We’ll be down when we’ve settled in.”

Ty’s aunt grinned at all of them. Damien managed a nod. She patted Ty’s arm on her way passed. “Such a sweet boy.”

Ty set the bags on the mattress and chatted with his aunt all the way down the stairs. Kenneth moved the bags to the closet side of the bed. At the bottom of the stairs Ty raced back up. He stepped into the room and closed the door. He pointed at the twin. “You aren’t sleeping there.”

Damien turned his face away. “She expects me to.”

Ty clenched and unclenched his fists. “I told her you were sleeping with us.”

“Which might be why she put him in our room.” Kenneth sat on the queen mattress and took off his shoes. Ty nodded and sighed. Good. Getting angry at his aunt or at Damien wasn’t going to help the situation.

“She just can’t wrap her mind around it.” Ty touched Damien’s cheek. Damien leaned into him and closed his eyes. Ty grinned. Maybe Kenneth should leave the two to make up. He grabbed his shoes.

Ty touched his shoulder. “Don’t go.”

Damien opened his eyes and licked his lips. “What if she comes?”

“She’s on the phone. That will keep her busy for a while.”

“But…”

Ty fell to his knees between the beds. “She expects you to use the twin. We’ll use it, but you are sleeping between us.”

He untucked his shirt and pulled it over his head. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have sex with a boy in my childhood bed.”

He reached for Damien and Damien melted against him.

Kenneth watched his lovers touch each other, but he stayed out of the embrace, except for digging out lube and condoms. This union was to bring Damien and Ty closer. Kenneth was there to get around the no ass rule that applied when they weren’t all together.

Kenneth didn’t mind. His men were handsome and gave themselves thoroughly. They were a work of art, beauty beyond compare. Watching was a religious experience and the very best porn imaginable.

He came right after Damien’s second time but he continued to stroke himself until Ty came. By then Damien was hard yet again.

Ty brought Damien off one more time and lay back. “He’s too much for me.”

Kenneth grinned. “You two are too much for me.”

Damien sighed. “I think you are just right.”

Ty laughed. “Thank you, but Kenneth is going to help next time.

Damien smile sexily at Kenneth. “Will you?”

Kenneth grinned back. “If you give me time to recover.”

Damien pouted. Kenneth crawled forward and kissed his cute lower lip. “Until then. Dessert is waiting downstairs. Pecan pie.”

Damien frowned. “A nut pie?”

Ty sat up and looked around. Kenneth passed up his clothes. Ty grinned and blew him a kiss. He gently pushed at Damien. “Get up and try it.”

Kenneth pulled himself to his feet and straightened his clothes. “Don’t worry. Ty will finish off your slice if you don’t like it.”

Damien continued to lie in bed after Ty put on his clothes. Damien turned in the sheets until he was the perfect picture of wanton innocence. “I thought I was dessert.”

Ty tugged off the sheets. “You, my love, are the main course. Get up before Aunt Millie comes up to find out what’s keeping us.”

Steps sounded on the stairs. Damien jumped up and pulled on his clothes. Ty stepped into the hall.

Kenneth rubbed his hand down Damien’s back. “You are the finest wine, the choicest meat, the most decedent dessert.”

Damien tucked his shirt in. “Hold that thought until after we eat.”

That wouldn’t be a problem. Kenneth had been holding that thought since he’d laid eyes on his beautiful, young lover.

 


	16. Kenneth's Birthday, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty makes plans and gets distracted

Ty tucked the first part of Kenneth’s birthday present into his vest pocket and poked his head into the bathroom. “Ready?”

Damien tugged at his bow tie. “I’m sure I haven’t got this right. Maybe I should have worn a dress.”

Ty stepped behind Damien and felt the knot of his tie. “It looks right and feels right, but if you’d like me to retie it…”

Aunt Millie had insisted Ty wear a bow tie to church every Sunday and she believed in the real thing, not ones with clips in the back.

“Please, would you?” Damien was so cute.

Ty unknotted him and fixed him up right. He kissed Damien’s neck. “You look good enough to eat.”

Damien grinned. “I thought you were saving your appetite.”

Ty was. Kenneth’s birthday demanded a fancy restaurant, linen napkins, and reservations. This was a chance to show Damien the finer things in life at one of those places so fancy they didn’t have menus. Everyone was served the meal planned for the day.

Ty ran his hands down Damien’s sides. Delicious. “Not even time for appetizers.”

Damien turned his cheek. Ty kissed him. He should have taken advantage of their mutual day off to have a taste, but frolicking without Kenneth on Kenneth’s birthday hadn’t seemed fair. “I will have to hold out until we get home.”

Damien turned in his arms. “I will try to be patient.”

Ty lifted Damien onto the edge of the counter and kissed his thoroughly. Ty had a need, an itch, and Damien was always willing.

Damien molded against him. Every second with Damien against him made Ty's intention to wait for Kenneth less likely. But with Damien in his arms, Ty was king of the world and as king he would grant Kenneth’s unasked for boon of waiting for him.

Ty pulled back slowly with lots of kisses. He had thoroughly mussed Damien up. He ran his fingers through Damien’s hair. “How long will you need to straighten up?”

Damien’s eyes widened and he jumped down and spun around. Then he relaxed. “Good thing I’m not in drag.”

Ty agreed. He still wasn’t totally comfortable making out with someone who looked like a girl, even if that someone was sweet Damien.

His parents' words still haunted him.

Damien combed his hair back into spikes and adjusted his clothes. The blue silk shirt and navy brushed cotton trousers slid quickly into place. “I thought I’d be a whole lot worse.”

“Want me to live up to your expectations?”

Damien laughed. “How much time do we have?”

Ty checked his watch. “None.”

Damien pouted. “Too bad.”

If Damien gave Ty any more looks like that, they’d never make it out of the house.

Ty took Damien’s hands and kissed him. Ty couldn’t do a lot of mussing up with his hands occupied. He stepped back and let go of one hand. “Outward and onward.”

“Together.” Damien grinned.

“Together.”


	17. Kenneth's Birthday, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien has an uncomfortable time

Damien stomach sank. The restaurant's front door reeked of class. The brass door knob shone in the light of the setting sun as if no one had ever used it. The place didn’t even have a sign out front.

A place so prestigious that it relied on word of mouth was too fancy for him.

He hung back as Kenneth and Ty made their way to the door. Maybe he should drive Ty’s car home now. Kenneth and Ty could take Kenneth’s home after they ate.

Kenneth turned and held out his hand. Damien reluctantly caught up. Ty pressed his big hand between Damien’s shoulder blades. They expected him to come with them. He could do this. He had to. If he pretended a stomach ache now, he couldn’t pretend to be miraculously cured for the other half of Kenneth's birthday present.

He would have pretended a stomach ache earlier if he’d know how intimidating the place would be.

The front door opened and a man in a tux with tails ushered them inside. “It’s a pleasure to have you join us again, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Kingston. And this?”

Kenneth introduced Damien. The man gave a small nod. “Mr. Parzen is your… very special friend?”

Damien felt his face heat up. Why did the guy need to say it like that? Damien took a step back, but Kenneth still hand his hand and Ty pushed him gently forward. “Very special.”

Damien stepped into a world of blue velvet, gold, and dark wood. They entry area looked like a den from a movie set complete with upholstered chairs, potted plants, and bookshelves lined with leather bound books.

The next room was bigger but more intimate. People sat at tables positioned between tall palms and tri fold screens. The click of utensils on plates was muted and none of the words from any of the diners’ conversations escaped their tables.

Their table was in a corner and Damien’s chair faced a window filled with many small diamond-shaped beveled panes. Did they pay someone just to clean them every day? He'd had a job like that once. Not a smudge or streak marred the surface and the wood between the panes gleamed with wax. Was that done before or after cleaning the windows? It must have been a pain to keep so perfect.

Kenneth put his hand on Damien’s. “Relax.”

That was easy for him to say. He’d been here before and chatted comfortably with the man who brought them their soup.

The soup was good, flavorful without being filling, but he didn’t want to eat too quickly. He needed something to keep himself busy. The waiter removed the soup bowls and replaced them with little plates with two somethings on it. If Damien continued eating at this pace, he might never run out of food.

Ty touched Damien’s arm. “Today he got his first fan gift that isn’t something he’d wear as Damien or Deedee. Jaron brought it over.”

The reindeer sweater was hideous and he was glad Ty and Jaron said he didn’t have to pretend to like it.

Kenneth grinned. “Damien, how bad was it?”

Damien looked at his untouched plate. “It looked handmade. Someone worked really hard on it.”

"They could have put that effort into something you’d actually wear.” Ty leaned back as the waiter removed his plate. Damien should have eaten a bit faster. He didn’t want the chefs to think he didn’t like the food. He picked up one of the somethings before the waiter whisked the plate away in favor of a small square of brown covered in yellow sauce. He put the first thing in his mouth. It was crunchy and soft, salty and sweet, but the aftertaste was awful. He grabbed the glass he hoped was water and downed it.

Ty laughed. “The sparkling cider,” he pointed to Damien’s wine glass, “might hide the flavor better.”

It helped, but not much.

The thing on his plate was greasy on his tongue, but didn’t otherwise taste bad. Was the sauce best part? He dipped his fork in just as the waiter replaced it with three cucumber slices. The cold cucumber didn’t do much to contract the spiciness of the filling.

The next plate was tiny pancakes with thick sauce and what might be raw fish. He told Kenneth about his day so he wouldn’t have to try that course.

The two tiny taco salads were delicious. He ate the garnish, an open pea pod, as well.

Meat came next. It tasted like beef, but looked like nothing Damien had ever seen. 

The cherry tomatoes were good even if he couldn’t identify the cheese filling.

Three slices of what looked like sushi, but with only vegetables, no fish or rice, came next. The one Damien ate was good, but the waiter took his plate while he was laughing at one of Ty’s theater stories. He had to eat faster. He was hungrier now than when he started. The waiter must think he hated the food.

A plate arrived with three translucent slices of meat in a clear orange-ish sauce with two sticks of chives. Damien downed it. The sauce was sour, but not too horrible. He drank the rest of his cider. The waiter filled it again when he brought the next plate. It looked like a thin slice of cheesecake, but was savory.

Too bad Damien wasn’t like Ty, who could eat anything, or Kenneth, who actually enjoyed the food, and the setting, and the service if his friendly chatter with the waiter meant anything. They talked about the owner’s daughter, now in college, and son, who'd just been asked to the prom.

Kenneth must have been coming here for a while.

The next course was rectangles of puffy bread with a small round of red pepper with a bit of melted cheese and a sprig of something green on top. They were very good. Damien stopped the waiter as he cleared the plates. “Please tell the chef those things were really good.”

The waiter nodded. Kenneth smiled at Damien.

He could survive the evening.


	18. Kenneth's Birthday, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth makes sure Damien has a good evening

Kenneth stepped out of the warm restaurant into the brisk night air with his hand on Damien’s back.

The poor guy was having a hard evening. Kenneth hadn’t guessed Ty’s plans, so he hadn’t accustomed Damien to the food or atmosphere of Kenneth’s favorite celebration restaurant. Kenneth's parents took him to a similar place whenever they deemed to acknowledge any of his hard work. Each new plate contained something new and special, like hours of presents and kept him from having to hear his parents be disappointed that he'd only beat the runner up by ten points instead of fifty. Then once he was celebrating small triumphs alone, the quick courses kept the waiter nearby, so Kenneth didn't feel quite so lonely.

Ty hopped over to his car. “Kenneth, take Damien with you. I’ll get everything set up.”

Perfect. Kenneth steered Damien to his car. “Do you need to stop somewhere and eat?”

Damien shook his head. “I… I ate enough.”

The waiter and head chef hadn’t thought so. They kept plying him with the best they had to offer and he was so sweet as to point of the things he liked while his face and plate told of the things he hated. Next time, Kenneth should just bring Damien by for appetizers or just for dessert. He had a wide range of things he liked, but not quite as wide as the restaurant served.

Kenneth pulled into the drive-through of a local fast food place.

“We don’t need to…”

“I want a milkshake. What’s in season?”

“It’s April, so nothing. Chocolate?”

Kenneth set his hand on Damien’s thigh. “We can park somewhere and drink them.”

Damien blushed. He was so sweet.

Kenneth ordered a small strawberry for himself and a large chocolate for Damien plus a large order of fries.

Damien ate half the fries before they got out of the parking lot. Stopping for food had been a good idea.

Kenneth drove up to the park and took a spot that looked out over the city. It was beautiful, but then so was Damien. “You survived.”

Damien hunched his shoulders. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

Kenneth wasn’t buying that. He’d sat across from Damien for three hours. “Thank you.”

Damien reached over and Kenneth took his hand. “You coming with us meant a great deal to me.”

Damien hung his head. Kenneth kissed his hand. “It wasn’t what you expected.”

“I…” Damien shrugged. “I worked in restaurants before, but I’ve never seen any place like that.”

“Where did you work?”

Damien talked about his first job being a gopher at the cafe of a man his parents had bilked money out of. The guy had felt sorry for Damien and paid him under the table because Damien hadn’t been old enough to work legally. Over three years and five jobs later, he turned sixteen and got his first legal job. How much schooling had he gotten with a life like that? Maybe it was time to bring up community college again. If he quit one of his jobs, he’d have time to take a few classes.

Damien compared the fanciest place he’d ever worked to where they’d gone tonight. “The napkins were real linen, and those curtains…” Damien sighed. “I wouldn’t have fit in even as a dishwasher or the kid that mops the floor.”

Kenneth kissed Damien’s hand. “You fit in perfectly. Both the waiter and the chef liked you.”

“How could you tell?” Damien took a long drink.

“The chef came out and talked to you specifically. He normally just greets everyone at the table at once then moves on.”

“But he talked to you.”

“I’ve known him for years.” Kenneth had been the only diner one night when the place was new. He’d taken his boss and a few colleagues back the next night. His boss’s had been impressed at being greeted by name. His wife had, reportedly, loved the atmosphere, but most colleagues agreed what she loved was how uncomfortable most of them were. The firm now kept a weekly reservation to take clients the boss wanted to impress. Clients loved how exclusive the restaurant was or were stunned by how comfortable the boss and his wife were at such an unusual place, but everyone walked away with a story.

Damien took another drink. “How did Ty react? The first time.”

“You know Ty. He warps the world to fit around him. He made jokes about all the dishes, but ate every bit of every one.” He'd been the first date Kenneth had brought who had ever wanted to go back. Of course by that time Ty had already moved into Kenneth apartment, but that was when Kenneth knew he was a keeper.

“Like he did tonight.”

“Yes.” Kenneth moved his hand to the back of Damien’s neck. Damien was a keeper too. "May I taste your chocolate?”

“Sure.” Damien lifted his cup.

“No. Like this.” Kenneth brought their mouths together. He let up a moment later so Damien could put his shake in the cup holder. Damien came back full of enthusiasm. They stayed busy until Kenneth’s phone rang. Ty. “Where are you?”

“Waiting for your call.”

“Well, you have it—Come home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ty laughed. “Come here and sir me to my face.”

Kenneth planned on it. “Do you have any final instructions for Damien?”

“Pass the phone.”

Kenneth did and started the car. The winding lane down the hill always seemed longer in the dark. Damien said, “Milkshakes” and “chocolate” and “Washington Park” and "strawberry” and “no” and a few more one or two word answers. Damien talked a lot more in Kenneth’s company, but his attraction to Ty might also be for his voice. Ty had a sexy voice.

When Damien turned off the phone, Kenneth pointed to the strawberry shake. “You might as well finish that.”

“Ty said you shouldn’t have been hungry.” Kenneth’s shake had been for solidarity and companionship. And for Damien to drink if one shake hadn’t been enough after his grueling evening. “Did he mention if he was hungry again already?”

“He prepared some snacks for after we’ve worked up an appetite.”

Kenneth pulled off the freeway. Only a few more miles. “Do you know what they are?”

“Look at that cloud.” Damien pointed at a fluffy cloud illuminated by the moon. “Isn’t it pretty?”

It was and so was the young man next to Kenneth. The way Damien had evaded the question was cute as well.

Ty must have another surprise for him and Ty’s surprises were the best.


	19. Mother's Day, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien's afternoon does not go as he hoped

Damien flung himself onto the couch. Working two jobs hadn’t been bad until afternoon rehearsals became evening shows. Sometimes he didn’t get out until one in the morning and he had to be at the coffee shop by four thirty.

He’d just sleep in the afternoon except that was the only time he saw Kenneth and Ty now. He had to quit one of the jobs. Being an actor was more fun, but being a barista was simpler.

Only as an actor he rarely had to deal with fans and they we always happy to see him. He’d had to give a customer her coffee for free after he’d made it the way she’d asked for twice. All because she’d said latte when she meant mocha. As if Damien was supposed to be able to read minds.

If he quit the coffee shop, he could sleep in mornings. But if he quit the acting gig, he’d have nights to spend with Kenneth and Ty. When was the last time he hadn’t fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow?

He missed their nights together.

The doorbell rang. Damien sat up. Kenneth was out for the day, having brunch with his mother, but where was Ty? Hadn’t he wanted to spend the afternoon with Damien?

The bell rang again. Damien rolled to his feet. Flannigan and Chloë wouldn’t be coming over today. They were spending the day with Chloë's mother. Who could this be? Salesmen didn’t come around on Sundays, did they?

Damien opened the door. His mother stood on the stoop. She was wearing church clothes, but she was definitely his mother. “Damien, darling.”

How had she found him? He pushed the door closed, but he wasn’t fast enough. She got her handbag in the way.  “Is that anyway to treat your mother?”

He tried to push her bag out of the doorway, so he could get it closed, but she leaned on the door. His socked feet slid across the tiled entryway.

“Damien!”

He lunged for the door frame and used all his strength to keep her from opening the door any further. “Leave.”

“No.” She shoved her shoulder against the door. “Not until I’ve talked to you.”

She didn’t want to talk. She was going to ask for money. That’s all she ever wanted.

“Go away.”

“Damien. Let me in. What will the neighbors think?”

Maybe they’d think the house was being invaded and call the police.

“If you don’t let me in, I’ll call your dad.”

Dad was much worse than Mom. Dad hit. Damien let go of the door frame. “I can’t let you in.”

She’d case Kenneth and Ty’s house for things to steal. Or even clean them out while Damien stood helpless. She had before. “We could go to a coffee shop?”

His mother stepped back. “Where you work?”

He was definitely quitting that job. If he wasn’t fired. “Sure. Let me get some shoes.”

He grabbed the closet pair, sandals. The day was wet, but he couldn’t let her look around. He stepped out on the porch, pulled off his socks, and tossed them inside.  He nodded to the car as he locked the door and checked that it was securely closed. “Yours?”

She smiled brightly. “Do you like it?”

She probably expected him to pay for it.

He patted his pockets. He’d left his phone and wallet on the table, but he had a few bucks in his pocket. He carried his sandals to the small car.

His mother leaned against the steering wheel as he put on his shoes. She nodded into the review mirror. “Your car?”

His car was parked behind hers.

“I’m allowed to drive it.” If she knew it was his, she’d force him to sell it for the money.

She frowned then sighed and started the car. “Those men let you drive their spare.”

She knew about Ty and Kenneth.

“When they don’t need it.”

“Why would they need it? The lawyer guy drives a luxury model.”

Had Mom been following Kenneth and Ty around?

Damien stifled a shudder and tried to make his shrug casual. “I don’t own it.”

“The title isn’t in the glove box? Copying a signature isn’t that hard.”

Damien rolled his eyes. “They keep important documents in the safe.”

She glanced at him. “They have a safe?”

“I don’t have the combination. They don’t keep money in it.”

“Where do they keep their money?”

Damien forced his hands to relax. “The bank.”

“Surely they have a stash somewhere easy to access.”

“I never asked. I have my own money.”

“Silly Damien, One can never have enough.”

…Of other people’s money.

Damien leaned back and stared out the window. If he was lucky maybe he’d end the day with only his bank account empty.


	20. Mother's Day, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty worries

Ty pulled into the driveway. Damien was home. Maybe he’d be awake long enough for some fun. 

He bounced into the house. “Damien, I’m home.”

Damien wasn’t in the living room or the bedroom. The bathrooms were empty as was Damien’s room. But Damien’s phone, wallet, and keys sat in his little basket in the dining room.

The deadbolt hadn’t been locked. Maybe he just outside somewhere. But without his keys? He wasn’t in the back yard. Or the front. Damien’s socks lay across his sneakers. He never left dirty socks anywhere. And why would he go out into wet grass with bare feet? 

Where could he be?

Ty walked around the house and then over to Damien’s car. How had he gone anywhere without his car or his shoes?

“Mr. Kingston, Mr. Kingston.” Mrs. Peters hobbled to the end of her driveway.

Ty hurried to her. “You shouldn’t be out here without your coat.”

He took her arm. She’d come out in her slippers and her feet were wet. “Let me get you inside.”

“No.”

“No?”

“The boy. The boy who lives with you.”

“Damien?”

Mrs. Peters nodded. “A lady kidnapped him.”

Rain splatted against the already wet sidewalk. 

“Let’s go in and tell me everything.”

Ty helped Mr. Peters into her chair and handed her a throw. While he made tea, she told him everything.

A woman, dressed in black and white and golden hair that must have been dyed, had tried to force her way into the house. Mrs. Peters had gotten up for a better look and to get her phone in case the police needed to be called. By the time she got to the window with the phone, Damien was walking barefoot across the grass, carrying sandals. He got in the woman’s car and they drove off.

Ty brought Mr. Peters the tea and she speculated about who the woman could be and what she might want. Ty wanted the facts.

And he wanted Damien back.

He thanked Mrs. Peters for her help and called Kenneth as he hurried back to the house. Kenneth didn’t answer, of course. He never did when he was out with someone and this was his mother. She disapproved of talking on the phone in company on principle.

She disapproved of a lot of things. And people. Ty, for instance.

Ty left a message, filling in everything he knew and that he was too scared to guess. He was going to search.

Where could Damien be? Where would the woman take him? Was she his mother, the woman he lived in fear of? Or someone just as bad? Someone worse?

Ty pulled into the street. Where to start? Was this something to do with the coffee shop? Or with the theater?

The theater.

Ty called Flannigan and left a message of what he knew. Next he called Jaron to warn him that an understudy might be needed for tonight’s performance, at least for the matinee. Damien had to be found by the evening’s shows curtain call.

Ty pulled into the coffee shop parking lot. No cars matching Mrs. Peters description were in sight. He went inside and asked, but the girl at the counter has just started her shift. The other guy wouldn’t be back from lunch for twenty minutes.

Ty drove around town looking for that elusive car. If he called the police, they’d say Damien had left of his own free will. He had to have been coerced. 

Ty checked the theater parking lot. Empty. He even checked the doors. No one was scheduled to arrive for over an hour.

Damien said his parents were always after money. Ty drove past all the banks he could think of.

He called the coffee shop. The guy was back, but he was with a customer.

Ty wasn’t that far away. He drove back. Seven people made it to the counter before him and all of the seven ordered complicated drinks. Finally the guy was done. Ty bought a brownie. He needed to do something even if it was just eating.

The guy said Damien had arrived about an hour after Damien’s shift ended with a woman, who looked a lot like him. She’d ordered coffee and Damien paid for it, but she took all the change. Damien told her that was all the cash he had and she said he could get more with his credit card and he said that wasn’t going to happen.

They argued at the table and then the woman come up to the counter and tried to borrow money off the barista, saying Damien would pay him back. And when he said no, she asked whether he didn’t own Damien money already and if he gave the money to her, he’d be square with Damien. But Damien had only given him the fifty this morning and he’d said not to pay him back until payday.

When they left the woman said something about a bank or ATM.

But she hadn’t been at any of the banks. And Damien’s bank card was still at home.

Maybe they’d gone back there.

Damien better be all right. Ty wasn’t going to forgive her easily.


	21. Mother's Day, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth has a plan

Kenneth sat in his car and breathed a sigh of relief. He tossed his trench coat into the passenger seat and turned on his phone. He’d survived brunch with his mother. He still hadn’t forgiven her for never approving of anything he did. He probably never would.

Ty had been active on the phone today. He must have known Kenneth wouldn’t pick up.

As Ty’s messages got more desperate, Kenneth’s heart went numb.

He took a deep breath. Ty was on the way to the house. But once they found Damien, how were they going to get him back? He left Ty a message, saying he understood the situation. As much as it could be understood.

Kenneth called Flannigan. He didn’t pick up. Kenneth called Chloë. She called him back as he was leaving a message.

“What’s up?”

“Damien has been kidnapped by his mother.”

“His mother?”

“Has he told you about her?” Kenneth didn’t have time for a history lesson.

“No,” she said much too slowly. “He never says anything about himself.”

“His mother is worse than mine.” Kenneth’s mother had never abandoned him.

“Oh.”

“And she isn’t likely to let him go without a good deal of money changing hands.” At least that’s the impression Kenneth had of her.

“Holding him for ransom?”

“Maybe. Does Flannigan still have his police uniform?”

“He’s going to get in trouble, isn’t he? He’ll be thrilled.”

She passed the phone to Flannigan. He was game. “They’re making me drink tea. In those fancy cups that look like they’ll break if you look at them wrong. Where should I meet you?”

The drive to Flannigan’s would add an extra twenty minutes. “At the school by my house.”

He wanted to meet at the end of the block, but Damien’s mother wouldn’t see them change cars this way. Really he wanted to be home right now. “Hurry.”

Flannigan laughed. “I’m already in blue. But do you look like a detective?”

“Bring me what I need.”

“We will.”

Kenneth took several deep breaths. He started the car and took the first available place to pull into traffic. The woman he pulled in front of honked and flipped him off. He had to get home, but he had to do so in one piece. He needed to calm down and think clearly. What if Damien was in danger? What if his mother hadn’t taken him home? What if she’d taken him to his father? Damien had scars.

But if Damien was in danger, that was all the more reason for Kenneth to drive safely.

His phone rang. He pulled over to answer. This wasn’t a day to get stopped for talking on the phone while driving.

Ty. “He’s home.”

Good. Kenneth could use a hug or two after the scare.

“She’s trying to get him to break in.”

“She’s still there?”

“I’m at Mrs. Peters. Damien freaked when he saw me.”

“He doesn’t want you over there?”

“I guess not. Do something.”

“I am.”

But first he had to wait for Flannigan. If he went in unprepared who knows what might happen. Kenneth wanted the woman to leave and never return. If she got money from them, she was likely to come back. Over and over. And Damien would be hurt each time. Kenneth couldn’t stand by while that happened.

This had to work.

Ty kept a running commentary about what Damien was doing. Mrs. Peters added her opinions. Kenneth was too far away. He needed to be doing something, fixing the problem. Or at least with Ty giving and getting comfort.

At long last Flannigan and Chloë pulled up. Chloë unloaded her car. “I think this will fit.”

Real detectives didn’t wear trench coats, did they? It was too long, but big enough to mostly cover the holster and toy gun Flannigan insisted Kenneth wear underneath.

Chloë fiddled and adjusted.

“Aren’t we done yet?” Damien needed help.

“Almost.” Chloë pulled at a bit of Flannigan’s hair and stepped back. “Done.”

Flannigan grabbed the driver’s door. “I’ll drive.”

Kenneth nodded. He didn’t trust his driving right now. 

The few blocks home were endless. At the corner, Flannigan opened his window and stuck a flashing light on the roof. “Authenticity.”

He zoomed down the street and pulled in across Kenneth’s driveway.

Time for the show to begin.


	22. Mother's Day, part 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien tries to delay the inevitable

Damien pressed buttons on the garage door lock. 

“Darling, you need to concentrate. Maybe your lawyer guy’s birthday? The house is in his name, isn’t it?”

Just how much did she know? 

“I can’t believe they wouldn’t tell you the code. You have a key to the front door.”

Damien knew the code, but he wasn’t about the let her in. Maybe if he put up off long enough, she’d go after easier prey. 

No likely.

Ty was keeping his distance, for now. Good. That way she couldn’t use him against Damien. But if she got desperate, she might call his father. He’d give her everything he owned to keep that man away. “I have the key, so I didn’t need the code. Unfortunately I locked my keys inside.”

She crossed her arms. “You aren’t trying to hold out on me?”

“Now, why would I do that?”

“True. You know the consequences.”

Damien stifled a shudder. “Maybe if I opened it?”

He pulled the panel off. Flannigan had used one of these on a project for the theater. If Damien pulled out just the right wire, the door couldn’t be opened even with the right code. Kenneth would have to get a new one, but that had to be cheaper than letting Mom into the house.

“What do you need the money for?”

Mom grinned and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Never you mind.”

“Eight thousand dollar by Thursday at two o'clock is pretty specific.” Much too specific for comfort. “Do you think I’ve got that kind of money lying around?”

Mom laughed. “Of course not. But I’m sure you know where to get it.”

How many laptop and knife sets and watches would have to be pawned for that kind of cash? Most household stuff was worth nothing the moment you took it out of the box. 

He’d tried to sell what his parents had left in the house after they abandoned him. Even with the help of the guy who took him in, Damien got less than three hundred dollars and he’d had to leave most of the stuff for the bank to clean up after the house was foreclosed on. 

Losing his box of treasures had been the hardest. The shell he picked up after his grandparents’ funeral. The stone with a blue tinge that his brother had told him was a dragon egg. A stick shaped like a cartoon arrow. A comic from his eighth birthday. Pictures. 

He didn’t even remember what his brother had looked like. 

The accident, his grieving parents, how everything went sideways when he got as old as Dominic had been, the cons, and being left: They were all crystal clear. But Dominic’s face was gone.

He pulled at the wire while Mom checked her phone. The door struggled and sighed back into place. She banged on it. “Damn. Not much of a house breaker, are you?”

Damien pocketed the wire. “That isn’t how I make my living.”

She patted his cheek. “You don’t make a living, dear. You scrape by on crumbs left by those of us who thrive. I’ll be sure to leave you some crumbles when we’re done.”

She wouldn’t. He’d be lucky if she didn’t make him sell his plasma.

Please don’t let her think of it.

“We have to get inside.”

“Why?”

“Silly boy, I need that money.”

What money? “They don’t have anything lying around.”

“But they have a safe. They’ll have a combination written somewhere.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“You haven’t looked, sweet thing that you are.”

She used to mean these endearments, back when Dominic was alive.

Mrs. Peters walked out onto her porch. Please, Ty, stay inside. Please.

Mom turned to look at Mrs. Peters’s house. “Let’s go around back.”

The back door was just as locked as it had been when they last tired it. Mom walked around to the far side of the house and came back with a rock bigger than Ty’s fist. 

“What’s that for.”

“To break the window in the back door. Here.”

Damien stepped away from her. Ruining the garage door opener was bad enough. He wasn’t going to make the house less livable. Did they even have plastic to cover the hole for tonight? Would Kenneth and Ty ever forgive him if he let her inside? Would he even have a home? So far everyone his mother had ever stolen from had kicked him out. With reason.

“Why do you need the money?”

“If you must know: I’m getting married.”

“Aren’t you still married to Dad?”

She laughed. “What he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.”

Did this mean Dad wasn’t backing Mom up? That the threat hanging over Damien had nothing behind it? Maybe Dad didn’t know about Ty and Kenneth. Please let that be true. 

She pushed the rock against Damien’s chest. He had to take it to keep it from falling on his toes. He set it down. “If you want in so much, you do it?”

She looked at her hands. “I might break a nail.”

Or maybe her foot.

“Why should I help you?”

“I’ll call your father.”

Damien rubbed his arm. He still had a burn scar and the vivid memory of being hurt on purpose for the first time.

He steeled himself. “But if I help you, won’t Dad just be mad at me?”

She patted his arm. “I haven’t told him where you are. Yet. But I’m sure he’d like to see you again.”

Damien shuddered.

“Now pick up the rock.”

Damien picked up the rock. Dad had the perfect facade. People trusted him on sight and even after he had fleeced them. Such a nice man.

Sure.

A car squealed to a stop out front. That wasn’t Kenneth, was it? Ty would have told Kenneth to stay way, wouldn’t he? Besides Kenneth didn’t drive fast enough to brake that loud. 

But every minute Mom wasn’t stealing from his home, was a good minute.

He dropped the rock in the grass and hurried around the house.

The car wasn’t Kenneth’s. It wasn’t Flannigan’s either although he was driving. Why were they both dressed up? 

“Sir. Ma’am.” Kenneth’s voice was lower than normal. “We’ve had complaints about shady characters in the area.”

“My son lives here. We were just coming back from Mother’s Day brunch when we realized he’d locked himself out. You two wouldn’t happen to be able to help us.” She gave her best come hither smile.

Kenneth’s scowl didn’t alter. “Your names?”

“Damien Parzen.”

Kenneth jotted something into his pocket-sized notebook. He looked at Mom. “And you.”

“Call me Angelica.”

That wasn’t her real name.

“IDs?”

“My son’s wallet is locked in the house. We tried every window and door. Maybe one of the neighbors has a key. You could help us search.” She smiled again.

Kenneth grunted. “Your ID, ma’am.”

Flannigan leaned out of the car, “Parzen’s name has a match.”

Flannigan looked Damien over then leaned back in the car. 

Mom stepped towards her car. Kenneth stopped her. “Your ID.”

Mom pulled her purse against her chest. What was she worried about? Didn’t she have several IDs? 

“Ma’am?”

“I don’t have an Angelica Parzen.” Flannigan stood beside the open car door. “But I do have a Jennifer…”

“Angelica Hudson.” Mom backed away from Kenneth. “And I have to go.”

“Smith.” Kenneth nodded toward Mom and came towards Damien, handcuffs in his hand. 

Flannigan stepped in her direction.

Mom fled to her car and sped away just as Flannigan reached it.

She was gone. Hopefully for a long time.

Kenneth pulled Damien into a tight hug. A moment later Ty joined them.

Damien rubbed his face on Kenneth’s coat. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

“You did nothing.”

“I…”

“Nothing.” Ty rubbed Damien’s shoulders. “I was so worried.” He pulled Damien against him. “Why wouldn’t you let me help?”

Kenneth sighed. “I hope I didn’t make things worse.”

“I think she’ll be scared to come around again.” Flannigan put his hat under his arm. “As nice as it is to see you guys comforting each other, Damien’s curtain call is in… fifty-five minutes.”

The clothes and makeup took almost that long. And he was miles from the theater. “I have to go.”

“Climb in.” Flannigan waved to the car he’d come in. “The back is big enough for three. Chloë can drive Kenneth’s car. We’ll get you there.”

Ty waved at Mrs. Peters and got in. Damien took the middle. Kenneth removed his trench coat and climbed in after. They all fit. Barely. But the closeness was good for snuggling.

Work was ahead and the rush to be ready on time, but being next to Kenneth and Ty made him relax. All was right with the world.


	23. Memorial Day, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty gets ready for guests he doesn't want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memorial Day for these three is the last Monday in May.

Ty pressed his lips together and shook out the bed sheets. Would they need to go through the dryer to get the creases out? He wasn’t going to iron them. That would just be ridiculous.

Of course Kenneth’s parents were ridiculous. The high and mighty power couple who had somehow managed to take the time out of their busy schedule to procreate three whole times was bestowing the precious commodity of their attention on their oldest son for the upcoming three day weekend. 

They were the reason Kenneth had taken so long to love himself. He’d finally been ready to love others when Ty was looking for love, which was good for Ty, but the way Kenneth’s parents treated him was unconscionable.

And he was inviting them to stay in Damien’s room.

They were better off in a hotel somewhere.

Maybe they’d see the room and choose a hotel anyway. If he put on the creased sheet, would they be more likely to find a new place to sleep? Or would they use it as an excuse to complain about Ty?

They didn’t need an new excuse. They could just harp of Ty’s many deficiencies and how Kenneth could do so much better.

But if they tried that on Damien, Ty was not going to keep his mouth shut.

Damien danced down the hall. Ty dropped the sheets and pulled him close. “Practicing.”

Damien kissed him. “Handsome stranger, what big eyes you have.”

Red Riding Hood. “The better to admire you with, my dear.”

His eyes moved to Ty’s lips. “And what a big mouth you have.”

“The better to kiss you with, my dear.”

His pressed his belly against Ty’s hips. “And what a cock you have?”

If Damien pressed himself up this close against his costar, Ty would have lost it, acting or not acting, despite the role of Big Bad Wolf being played by a woman. Ty changed the response, Jaron’s plays were slightly more vulgar than Ty liked to use on his men. “The better to make sweet love to you, my dear.”

He bent his face to Damien and Damien melted against him.

And then he slipped on the sheet Ty had dropped.  Oops.

Ty picked it up. “I guess I was in the middle of something.” 

“Something that can wait until I go to work?” Damien fluttered his eyelashes. “Or something I can help you with, so it will be done faster and we’ll have a little time to waste?”

“It wouldn’t be wasted.” Maybe the sheet did need to spend a few minutes in the dryer. “How about you keep me company.”

“Any time.”

They carried the sheets to the dryer and added the pillow cases for good measure. Damien turned the dryer on and hopped up on it. He put his hands on Ty’s shoulders. “Am I company enough?”

Ten minutes wasn’t enough. They added an extra five and made the most of it.

After they washed up, Damien helped Ty make the bed. He fluffed a pillow. “It’s good the room is being put to use.”

Ty tugged a shadow of a wrinkle out of the blanket. “Have you talked to Kenneth about his parents?”

“They have money. They bought him a car for his thirtieth birthday.”

“They withheld affection unless he was perfect enough. Love your kid and he might love himself and might decide to be a artist or gym teacher and not the doctor or lawyer you want him to be.”

Damien leaned against him. “You don’t like them.”

Ty held him close. “The feeling is mutual.”

“Do you think they won’t like me either?”

“They might not think an artist or an author is good enough for their only son, but Kenneth loves us both, so don’t let anything they say bug you.”

They went into the kitchen. Ty needed to start dinner. Damien put the part of last night’s dinner Kenneth had saved for him into a reusable lunch bag. The theater had a microwave in the green room.

“Tell me about them.”

Ty tried to remember the things that hurt him worst at the time and told them as silly stories that had Damien laughing. “I can’t believe they shut the door in your face.”

Ty grinned. “I was just a wandering leprechaun who’d somehow infiltrated their son’s party.”

“What did Kenneth do?”

Ty shrugged. “He’s seen them do enough. I don’t need to add to his unhappiness.”

“Wouldn’t he want to know?”

“Every year he thinks that maybe this is the year they will come to love him unconditionally.”

Damien kissed Ty’s cheek. “I’ll be extra good to him.”

Ty wrapped his hands around Damien’s waist. “I know you will. I have an idea.”

This time the kiss was on the lips. “Tell me.”

“This is the first year they are staying here, not at a hotel. We really won’t have any place away from them. But they won’t have any place away from us either. Every time we get insulted or slighted, that person makes out with Kenneth, no matter where he is.”

“No matter where he is?” Damien grinned. “Sounds like fun?”

It would be, with him.


	24. Memorial Day, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien men came to his play. But so did Kenneth's parents.

Damien stood on his mark with a giant feather duster in his hand. The curtains rose. Tara swept in wearing full stepmother regalia. The small noises from the audience stopped. She turned to look at Damien, or Deedee. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Oh, Mother Dearest, the cat’s paws were so quiet, I’m afraid I didn’t hear you arrive.”

“I was talking about you.” Stepmother rolled her eyes. “You sweet dumb child.”

“Thank you, Mother Dearest.”

The conversation continued in the same vein. The stepmother throwing shade while Cinderella was “too innocent to notice” and so very sweet with her answers, even when she was giving, oh so sweetly, back just what she’d gotten.

Cinderella’s step sisters flounced in. The hardest part of this role was to not hate them too obviously. As well as these parts, they were also Damien’s understudies. They’d talked Jaron into it after Damien had almost missed curtain call on Mother’s Day.

Two weeks ago Damien would have given up his part if asked. Now they would have to pry it from his cold, dead fingers.

Cinderella held her own by deflecting most of the nastiest comments, many landing on the sister who spewed them. As a result, she wasn’t allowed to attend the ball. Sour grapes.

A wizard appeared before her—played by a woman—and granted her machismo for three hours. This gave her the gumption to attend the party on her own.

The curtain didn’t fall between acts. Techies, dressed like servants moved or turned furniture and the back drop was lowered or raised. Damien had one minutes thirty to change from the dress of rags, showing off more than an innocent girl should, to the ball gown while the set changed from garden to ball room and the prince—Amanda today since it was Emma’s night off—was introduced.

On the left wing, Damien removed his wig, shimmed out of the rags and, with the wardrobe assistance’s help, into the gown.

Tara looked around the curtain. “Girlfriend, your fella’s here.”

Kenneth? Wasn’t he supposed to be with his parents?

“That guy’s with him.”

Ty was supposed to pick him up after the last show. What were they doing here?

Damien stepped into the hoop skirt and tied it around his waist as the wardrobe assistant placed the new wig on him and pinned it into place. He steps into his new shoes. The wardrobe assistant looked him over, bent down and untwisted his hem, then nodded. A gulp of water and Damien was good to go.

Just in time. Two lines, one line, Damien’s cue. He stepped out and looked around the stage. The prince cut off his conversation with the stepsisters and left his throne. He took Cinderella’s hand and asked for her name. She deflected the question. He asked her another and a third, but she answered each with what the prince took for an innocent nothing, but had the audience laughing.

Finally Damien had a moment alone. He fluttered his fan. He was supposed to be watching the prince talk to a servant, but he looked at the audience instead. As long didn’t seem to notice Tara, he was fine.

Kenneth sat near an aisle a little over halfway back. Ty sat beside him. On Kenneth’s aisle side, a dark haired couple watched the play. His parents? Why had the come here? Wasn’t Kenneth taking him to a restaurant or something? That should have kept them busy for three or four hours.

On cue Tara imposed herself on his view and sent this unknown princess barred comments. Cinderella sent back ones with sharper points and Tara hammed up her wounds.

Bells rang. Midnight. The machismo came to an end. Cinderella turned meek, or as meek as she ever was, and ran off stage without one shoe.

Stepping out of a shoe was awkward no matter how many times he did it, but the director insisted it was supposed to be.

Damien stepped out of the other shoe, picked it up, ran across backstage as quietly as possible while the stage was reset to be her house, and entered from stage right. She ran up the stairs that led to “the upper floor” backstage.

The wardrobe assistant met him at the bottom of the back stage stairs. Off went the wig, the gown, the hoop skirt. On went the rags, the ‘drab’ wig, and the barely-there slippers. He swished the rag skirt to make sure his legs showed off well, made sure the shoe was in his pocket, and hurried back up the stairs, where he downed half of the water bottle. Just in time.

The Stepmother and Stepsisters argue about who the strange woman might have been. The Stepmother calls Cinderella down and tells her that for the foreseeable future, she won’t be opening the door. Her Stepsisters will do it. They argue that they won’t do such a menial task. The Stepmother reminds them of the reward. The prince is looking for the woman and he might just fall in love with them.

They go off to bed. Cinderella wanders into the garden, as the backdrop rolls to the side, and the wizard appears. She asked for another dose of machismo for when the prince comes. He tells her he gave her what she already had.

The stage goes dark and light again. The stage is back to being Cinderella’s front room with Cinderella in the middle. The Stepmother and Stepsisters come down wearing movie star dressing gowns, boas and feathers on their slippers and all.

The doorbell rings. Cinderella is sent upstairs. The prince’s servant has arrived. He tries the shoe on both the sisters with much grunting and swearing all around and even on the Stepmother when she insists. When he’s about to leave, the prince arrives. He wants results.

Both Stepsisters claim to fit the shoe and during their fight they let on that Cinderella is upstairs.

The prince’s servant insists Cinderella should be brought down. The Stepmother is just as adamant that Cinderella isn’t worth the effort.

The prince takes matters into his own hands and goes toward stairs, but as his foot touches the bottom step, Cinderella opens the door. She walks to him, showing as much leg as possible. He gapes and falls to his knees. “Truly you are beautiful. If I were not looking for another…”

He turned to his servant. “The shoe doesn’t matter. This is the one.”

Cinderella smiles. “What a cute thing you are as well, my prince, but aren’t you going to ask me first?”

He takes her hand. “My love, my lover, today and forever.”

He kisses her fingers.

“What about the shoe!” The Stepmother stomps her foot.

“This shoe?” Cinderella pulls a shoe from her pocket.

The stepmother glowers. She grabs the shoe and breaks it in half. The servant snatches it away from her, but the prince is already on his feet, kissing Cinderella.

Amanda, her face inches from Damien’s, whispered, “Almost there.”

They pulled away as if for breath and clutched again. What was Kenneth doing out there?

When they stepped apart, the rest of the actors on stage stood gawking. They had several more arguments, because the Stepmother refused to lose quietly, but Cinderella gave as good as she got.

One more quick change into a wedding dress and another gulp of water as the stage becomes the prince’s ball room again, then on stage for the after-wedding dance. The Stepmother flirts outrageously with all the men and pretends that Cinderella was always her favorite because some people always win even when they lose.

But Cinderella and the prince trade double entendres and blissfully ignore the chaos.

The Stepmother got the last word because Tara would have it no other way and the curtain fell. The audience applauded.

Damien grabbed a quick drink as the actors went out in twos. He and Amanda went last. People were standing up, which was always nice. The exhaustion of doing shows back to back was dancing about the edges, but he’d last long enough to change and hopefully get home.

Kenneth blew a kiss. His men were out there watching him. They’d come to each of the plays, which changed according to some plan in Jaron’s head. Sometimes they did a different play every day of the week, sometimes the same play three days in a row and twice on weekends.

He bowed again. Someone handed him roses. He grinned and bowed and blew kisses and grinned some more. Jaron came on stage and let everyone go.

Damien drank a whole bottle of water. All those lines dried his throat. Jaron gestured Damien and Amanda back onto the stage. They all took one last bow. “And,” Jaron gestured widely, “for being such a great audience tonight, if you present your ticket next door, your first drink’s on me.”

The crowd cheered louder.

This was a deal Jaron had with the bar owner next door. She got more customers and he got talked about by people who hadn’t even seen his plays. Most of the cast would be over once they were out of makeup, but first they had to greet their audience all done up. That was the reason for Cinderella’s last scene. Jaron had had a problem, years ago, with one particular patron and the rag skirt.

“I’m not going out without you.” Tara took Damien’s arm. They walked the long way to the theater lobby. Patrons waited to have their playbills signed or flirt or tease the actors. Some people came every night and treated them like family.

And old lady presented Damien with a shawl. He thanked her, but didn’t want to put it on until he got all his makeup off. “I’ll wear it home tonight.”

“Be a dear and do.”

Damien promised again. Tara got a bottle of vodka and a vulgar t-shirt. That was the sort of thing he wore as Edgar. That and sweatpants. Things Tara would never get caught dead in. Damien matched himself mostly, which proved, according to Tara, that Deedee wasn’t a real persona.

But she was part of Damien now and even if he quit acting tomorrow, he’d never give her up.

Another group of people approached. Damien signed things and smiled and replied to flirting as gently as possible. No, he wasn’t going to be next door. He wasn’t quite twenty-one yet.

Jaron didn’t mind that excuse. Damien’s youth was good for the company or something.

A man stepped up and held out a hand. He looked as much like Kenneth as anyone could that didn’t look like him at all. More manner than looks maybe. Damien shook it. “Did you enjoy the show?”

“Not as big as it could have been.” The man’s grip was firm and persistent. “But this is only your first acting job.”

The woman beside him nudged his elbow. “We are both pleased to see you are the star.”

Tara grunted. “Someone’s talking to the wrong person.”

Kenneth took Damien’s arm and removed his hand from Kenneth’s father’s. “Damien, Tara, these are my parents: Robert and Barbara Hunt.”

Tara took Robert’s hand and flirted outrageously. He laughed and played along, but kept looking at Damien. Barbara crossed her arms. Damien had to get out of this dress. “Kenneth, why don’t you take them next door?”

“What a great idea.” Tara didn’t let Robert go as she walked off. She always wore her stage makeup to the bar. Washing off the stage making and putting in the drag makeup was just too much work. Tara didn’t go anywhere work related as Edgar.

Barbara followed them out.

Kenneth kissed Damien’s cheek. “I better follow them.”

“Don’t let Tara force your mother to kill anyone.” Ty took the shawl from over Damien’s arm and turned him toward the green room.

“Is he yours?” asked a guy in a backward baseball cap and some kind of sports shirt with the sleeves cut off.

Ty grinned. “Yep.”

“Then that kiss…”

Damien wasn’t about to let patrons think they could just go around kissing him. “I’m the other guy’s too.”

“Switch days?” The guy bit his lip.

Ty grinned wider. “Big bed.”

The guy licked him lips. “If you’re ever looking for a forth…”

“You’ll have to wait in line.” Ty pushed Damien though the doorway. “Change quick. Barbara might blame us for her husband’s behavior and stay an extra day to punish us.”

Taking makeup off wasn’t easy. Rushing wasn’t an option if he wanted to keep his skin. Ty helped him put the wig away and took the dress to wardrobe. They would look over it for smudges or tears. Tomorrow probably. Unless it was tomorrow already.

Damien was so tired. He shouldn’t have gotten up extra early to spend time with Kenneth before his parents arrived.

He got back in his jeans and t-shirt and wrapped the scarf around his shoulder before he put his windbreaker on. The old lady would certainly be watching for him.

She was.

Damien thanked her again as Ty pulled up in his car. He’d had to park down the block.

Damien got in and fastened his seatbelt. “Are the others coming?”

“I told Kenneth I’d call him when I got you home.”

“Thanks.” Damien closed his eyes.

“Need me to carry you in?”

Damien shook himself awake. Ty walked around and opened his door, then walked him into the house. “You were great up there.”

Damien grunted his thanks.

“Nothing fell and no one tripped or flubbed a line. It was a pretty good night.”

Damien agreed. Ty helped him out of his shirt and jeans and into bed. He’d brushed his teeth right after he ate between shows. The adrenaline crash always took him hard. On two show nights his men didn’t want him driving home. For the best.

The lights went out and Ty snuggled against him. Ty got up again. Voices rose. Kenneth warmed Damien’s back and Ty’s breath rustled his hair. Paradise.

 


	25. Memorial Day, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth gets affection all around

Kenneth grinned as Damien sat on his lap and wrapped his arms around Kenneth’s neck. He didn’t seem to care who might be watching. He leaned in close. “I love you.”

Kenneth felt loved. He kissed Damien. Not too deep because Dad was watching a movie a few feet away. Kenneth rubbed his nose against Damien’s neck. He and Ty were very affectionate these last few days. That made Kenneth want to be affectionate back even though his parents were sleeping right down the hall.

They’d wanted—at least Mom had wanted—to sleep in the master bedroom.

The three of them wouldn’t have fit in Damien’s old bed.

Ty had been very accommodating, too much so. He’d said that as soon as they woke Damien up and put some clothes on him and hunted up some sheets without lube stains, Mom and Dad could have the bed. But she’d need to forgive the smell. Try as he might, Ty hadn’t been able to remove the scent of the peach lube that had spilled on the mattress a few weeks ago.

Kenneth liked the smell of peaches and the reminder of his men even when he went to bed without them.

Mom had decided that the spare room was good enough, especially when Ty had told her that mattress was almost new.

Damien covered a big yawn that didn’t go as far as his chest.

“Bed time?”

Damien nodded. They’d played this game before, but never with guests over. Kenneth rubbed Damien’s thigh. “I’m tired too.”

Damien kissed him again and fluttered off. He’d been doing more of that lately. Light steps didn’t echo on the stage and in a long dress he looked like he was gliding. Like a heroine from a story might.

“Are you sure he’s a guy?”

Kenneth wasn’t going to roll his eyes no matter how many times Dad asked that. “Damien is every inch a man.”

“It’s just… He makes a very convincing woman.”

“He’s paid to be convincing.”

“He’s very good at it.”

“Damien is good at his job.” Kenneth checked the doors. The kitchen was clean. They’d eaten out. “Which lights will you need?”

He turned off the kitchen lights. “Is the lamp enough?”

The lamp beside the couch glowed softy. Dad reached for the remote.

“You can finish watching that.”

Dad put the remote of the arm of the recliner. Having him here was better than in the bedroom listening. Kenneth checked the room once more. Nothing needed his attention.

Here.

Ty and Damien did. Jaron made a good decision not to open the theater on Monday for Memorial Day. Three days in a row of double plays would have left Damien too tired to play tonight. And maybe tomorrow.

“Do you have sex with him?”

Kenneth turned in the doorway. Dad was still looking at the TV, but he was playing with the remote. Kenneth must have heard that wrong. “Pardon?”

“The boy. Damien. Do you have sex with him?”

Kenneth wasn’t having this conversation. He must have fallen asleep on the couch. This was the man who had grudging accepted his son’s sexuality but forbade him from speaking about it. “What?”

“That must be a yes or you’ve have just said no.”

“Dad, Damien has been sleeping in our bed every night that you’ve been here.”

“Ty calls the room we’re in Damien’s.”

“He keeps Deedee’s clothes and makeup in there normally.”

“They aren’t in there now.”

“We cleared everything out to make a space for you and Mom.” Everything was in Flannigan’s extra closet.

“So he can’t become Deedee. We should have stayed at a hotel again.”

“He wouldn’t anyway. That something he gets paid to do.”

“So he doesn’t do it if he isn’t paid?”

“No.” Sometimes he did on special occasions, like when Ty decided he wanted to be topped by her.

Now that had been a sight to behold.

“He would if I paid him.”

“No, Dad. Damien isn’t going to dress up so you can ogled him.”

“But he’s so pretty.”

“He is. Even out of a dress.”

“Out of a dress.”

Dad was not imaging Damien naked. Maybe Deedee. “Damien’s male remember.”

Dad sighed. “A man can dream.”

This was not happening. Kenneth walked out.

The door to the hallway bathroom opened. Mom pressed her lips together. “Why do they do that?”

“Do what?”

“Ignore me. I’m just trying to help.”

That did not sound good at all. “You can give me advice, but you should let their mothers do that for them.”

“But Ty would be more successful if he just put a little effort in.”

“Ty is successful. He and Flannigan work for every theater in town that doesn’t do the work in house and they’ve added nightclubs to their client lists.” Two so far. “And even made a few backdrops for corporate events.” Two for one event that would happen in late June. “He’s doing great.”

“But he hardly works.”

“He works as often as he needs to.”

“But, Kenneth, why should you be the only real earner in your house? These men live on you.”

“I’d be working the same if both worked fifty hour weeks. This way I get to see them.” Sometimes. Damien’s schedule meant they only ate dinner together twice a week and on weekdays Kenneth left before Damien got up.

They had weekend mornings and Monday and Tuesday evenings. Three days a week they only communicated in notes and sleepy kisses.

And Ty who managed to bridge their schedules and sleep patterns perfectly.

Mom crossed her arms. “If you think that’s all right, I won’t try to dissuade you.”

This was her way of saying that Kenneth was crazy. She’s used it when he chose an out of state college, when he came out to her and when he told her he was moving to Oregon. She had stronger words when she found out he was dating a jobless guy six years younger than he was. But so far she hadn’t mentioned Damien’s age, except to tell Dad he was an old man who should know better.

The bedroom door opened.

“And Damien could be so much more successful in New York or London.”

Damien slid into Kenneth’s arms. “I prefer to be a big fish.”

Being a headliner in a small theater in a fairly active theater scene must be nicer that being in the background of a giant theater in an enormous city filled with huge theaters. Besides this kept Damien close to home.

Damien kissed him. “Ready for bed?”

“Already?” Mom frowned. “It’s barely nine.”

“I’m an early riser.” Kenneth led Damien down the hall to the bedroom door.

Ty pulled Kenneth inside. “I keep telling myself ‘twice a year’ but it’s hard to remember when…” Ty sighed. “I shouldn’t complain. Your mother is better than mine. Not as good as Aunt Millie, but then who is?”

“You’re mom is better than mine too.”

Kenneth kissed them both. He turned out the light. The lamp on Ty’s side of the bed was dimmed with a dark blue handkerchief over the shade.

The blanket was pulled back, invitingly. His men where inviting too. He pulled off his clothes. “Let’s not be too noisy.”

Damien laughed and pulled him on to the bed. He helped Damien remove the last of his pesky clothing. Ty was only one lose waistband away from naked. Perfection.

And so were his men in his arms. Kisses and touches became so much more. Ty panted with excursion and Damien made the cutest little noises when they had him high and hard. Kenneth had the power.

A knock sounded at the door. What? Who?

Ty thrust hit Kenneth just right and Damien made the cutest noises in his ear and he moaned his pleasure. They were that mattered.

Later, an hour? Two? Kenneth pried his eyes open and looked at the clock. He was going to have to do some blanket adjusting if they weren’t going to wake up freezing at four in the morning. Even this late in May, morning were cold.

Kenneth scooted out from under the jumble of limbs and pulled the covers back on.

Were his parents asleep? A low murmur came through the walls. Had they left the TV and DVD player on?

Kenneth pulled on his pants and went out into the hall. The light in the spare room was still on.

So was the TV. His parents were watching the ending credits of a super hero movie. Weird. They had disapproved of any movies with ‘abnormal’ people in it when he was young. Mom was also reading a magazine. The about-actors, for-actors one Damien got or one of Ty’s about set design or woodworking?

They both turned around.

“Need anything?”

“The knock?” Mom looked back at the magazine. Damien’s. That article was about keeping a job once you got it, even if it wasn’t the one you wanted. “You were being loud.”

Dad laughed. “And you got louder afterward. Just like I said you would.”

Mom rolled her eyes.

“If you don’t need anything…” Kenneth stepped back. “I’ll just go to bed.”

“We’re fine.” Dad shut off the TV. “Good movie.”

He clapped Kenneth on the back. Mom patted Kenneth’s cheek as she walked by. She hadn’t done that since he made valedictorian in high school.

Kenneth turned off the DVD player and the lamp.

His parents were in the spare room, but the door was still open.

“Did you ever imagine our son dating a star?” Dad sat on the bed.

Kenneth hurried past the door.

“Rob, Damien is young enough to be your grandson.”

Dad laughed. “Ken and the redhead, that didn’t make sense, but neither would just Ken and the princess. Our son is so exceptional, he needs two men.”

“Why did he pick these two?”

“One might be better looking and the other taller, but our son is still the best.”

“True.”

Kenneth opened his door quietly and pushed it closed. His parents approved of him. Everything was conditional: all their love, their time and attention, everything. But by growing up and striking his own path and doing what was best for him, he’s won their approval.

It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t, but tonight, lying beside the men he loved, he was happier than he’d ever imagined.

 


	26. Pride Week, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth needs to talk Damien unto something.

Kenneth stacked the dishes and took them into the kitchen. Ty brought in his plate and kissed Kenneth’s cheek. “Good luck.”

Kenneth was going to need it. He scrapped the plates into the garbage.

Damien brought in the glasses. “Would you like a hand?”

This was one of Damien’s few evenings off. Ty was setting up the bedroom for their evening together.

“Anytime.” Kenneth made room at the sink. “You fill the dishwasher very efficiently.”

“Thank you.” Damien rubbed his shoulder against Kenneth’s arm.

They washed the dishes together. Moments like this were precious. But Kenneth had a mission. “Have you ever been to Pride?”

Damien shrugged. “I’ve always been working.”

“Never felt like going?”

“That isn’t the kind of place that’s fun alone.”

That entirely depended on the fun one was looking for. But Kenneth and Ty had found a different kind of fun together. “What do you think about coming with us this year?”

“Jaron wants all of us on a float.”

“Doesn’t sound appealing?”

Damien moved the dishes in the dishwasher around and made enough space for the last few. “Should it?”

“Does he want to promote the theater?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever been on a float before?” Kenneth had once at eighteen. He’d been a go-go boy dancing next to a pole and people had thrown weird and wonderful things his way and cheered. He’d been king of the world.

“It’s not even going to be a float. Just someone’s old car. From the thirties? Some of us will ride in it or on it and some will walk.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“Dressed as Deedee?” Damien dampened a towel. “Riding. Especially if it’s hot.”

“The parade will be in the morning. Then the party starts.”

“You’ve been?”

Every year. “Several times.”

“Is it the wild thing I’ve heard about?” Damien frowned. He scrubbed at the table.

“Parents with kids. Couples meeting friends. People selling stuff. Musicians. Ty likes to dance.”

“He does?” Damien looked up. “In his kilt?”

“Yeah. That bouncing dance. He finds something to stand on and we all watch to see if his kilt flips and shows us his goods.”

“Has it ever?” Damien glanced toward the hall.

“He wears the thicker kilt that doesn’t fly up as much, but he does draw a crowd.” Although Kenneth and Ty talked for the first time that New Year’s Eve night they went home together, their first Pride together wasn’t the first Pride he’d seen Ty dance.

One didn’t forget a performance like that.

Damien bit his lip. “If you guys are planning to go…”

“We’d like you to come with us.”

Damien rinsed the towel and looked back toward the hallway.

“Is Jaron offering the theater to change in? Being Deedee all afternoon…”

“No. I’d rather come home than do that.”

“If we could make sure you had a place to change, would you be willing to attend with us?”

Damien looked down. “You really want to go.”

“We really want to show you off.”

Damien sighed. “I guess.”

Kenneth hugged him. “We won’t ask you to stay if you aren’t having fun, but please take a chance with us.”

Damien cuddled closer. “I already am.”

Ty stepped into the doorway. “Get him convinced?”

Damien grinned. “Pretty much.”

“Plan B was me keeping you hot and hard until you’d promise me anything just to let you come.”

What did Ty have planned for tonight?

Damien glided over and stopped with an outstretched hand against Ty’s chest. He licked his lips. “Maybe I’ll pretend I haven’t agreed yet.”

He slipped past Ty.

Ty watched him go. “Can you believe he’s ours?”

“Damien is a treasure.”

“Our treasure.” Ty kissed Kenneth. “Finish up. I just had the greatest idea.”

All Ty’s ideas were great, especially in and about the bedroom.

“I’ll be right there.” Kenneth started the dishwasher, checked the doors and turned out the lights. He had work tomorrow, but time with his men was worth a few yawns at the office.

He hurried down the hall to get ready for bed and his men.

 

 

 


	27. Pride Week, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien has a need and a stranger helps

Damien took another sip of water. The sun was bright and heat radiated off the street and sidewalks and buildings and all the happy people around him. He needed the water, but he body couldn’t hold another drop.

He was going to have to brave the port-a-potties. And the block long line.

Damien touched Kenneth’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

He nodded toward the toilets. Kenneth blew him a kiss and turned back to Ty and several other men dancing in place with enough jumps to lift his kilt, but never enough to reveal what was or wasn’t underneath. Ty had practiced for him several times, once to show off the difference the kilt’s fabric made. But the practice was different from the real thing. Damien wanted to stay. He shouldn’t have drunk that whole bottle of water. Or he should have gotten in line earlier.

People waited beyond the corner. This couldn’t all be the lines for the toilets?

It was.

How was he going to make it?

The line would move quickly. There were eight toilets. But three looked to have out-of-order signs on them. Five bathrooms and a hundred people. Now if everyone just needed to relieve themselves then maybe he’d get a change before he gave up and found a quiet alley somewhere.

“The line is shorter at the park.”

Damien turned.

A guy a little older than him was juggling a sunscreen bottle between his hands. He was shirtless, like much of the crowd, but he was covered in tattoos. Most were dragons. All were bright with clean lines.

He didn’t look dangerous even in leather jeans that laced up the sides. Tattoos peeked through the gaps.

“It’s a few blocks that way.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “And I guarantee you’ll get in quicker.”

If he didn’t, he could always pee on a tree.

The guy put out his hand. “Peregrine Jones, artist.”

“Damien Parzen, actor.” That still felt funny to say. Barista was more natural even after he’d quit that job. “Which way did you say?”

“To the Park Blocks.” He ran his right hand through his buzzed off hair. He didn’t have any tattoos on his neck or face. Just the dragon whose nose rested on his collar bone.

They were still in public, so he couldn’t be planning anything funny.

He pointed out landmarks and fidgeted with the bottle, his hair, the hoops in his earrings and even his phone, which somehow fit in an invisible pocket of his skin-tight jeans. He didn’t text or talk though. He just put the phone away.

“Sorry. I’ve got the urge to sketch and my pencils and notebook are back with my friends.”

“What do you sketch?”

“People. Things. Scenes.” Peregrine smiled. “Anything.”

Damien? He’s love to see a sketch of himself. But was Peregrine trying to pick him up? Show off his etching kind of thing? He hadn’t actually offered to show Damien anything. Or have him sit for him or whatever getting one’s picture done was called.

Across the street was a park with a playground and at the corner…

A woman opened the door the large sidewalk stall and herded three children out.

Peregrine grinned. “No lines.”

Good. The conversation was only kind of taking his mind off his all consuming need.

Relief.

Peregrine was waiting outside.

“Your turn.”

“No.” Peregrine stood up from the street sign he was leaning against. “Sanitizer and water around the back. No. I live just up a bit.”

Powell’s was that way, wasn’t it? “You live in the Pearl?”

“All great artists did when I was starting out. But then it gentrified. I finally make enough to afford it.”

He looked up the street with a grin. The Pearl gentrified years ago. “You must be older than you look.”

“I’m told that all the time. Early thirties, which is why I didn’t just let you use my bathroom. And how old are you?”

Damien looked at his feet. “Eighteen.”

“Factually or Ideally?”

Damien glanced over. Peregrine was watching kids in the playground. Adults lay on blankets in the grass. Under the trees was cool and breezy.

“I saw you with the two men. I’ve got nothing against that. I’ve got two men of my own.”

Damien steeled himself. “But…”

“But if that eighteen is really seventeen and a half, you could do the men you love a world of harm by sleeping with them. I know it’s hard. It’s harder not to do what’s natural for people in love when you live together, even if you have your own room.”

So true. Damien hadn’t slept in his room since the night before his birthday.

His phone went off. Ty. Where are you?

Damien looked around for the street sign. Peregrine pointed it out. Damien sent the street names. “I guess I better get back.”

Peregrine ran his hand through his hair. “I really am looking out for you. I volunteer at the youth shelter by the freeway.” He pointed farther into town. “You know the one?”

Damien had almost been that desperate a time or two. Or several.

“We could set you up with a family for a few weeks or months…”

And give a boy the freedom to decide if living with the older man, or men, was what he really wanted.

“Thanks, but I really am eighteen.” Damien pulled out his wallet and showed off his driver’s license. Peregrine pulled the ID out and gave it a good rub, like Damien had been told to do as a bartender, looking for tampering.

“Good.” He handed it back. “But if you ever need anything—”

“Excuse me.” Ty loomed out of nowhere. “Who do you think you are?”

“Peregrine Jones.” Peregrine held out his hand like Ty’s anger wasn’t threatening. “I try to keep my eyes open for youth in need.”

“And you think Damien needs you?”

Ty was really handsome when he was angry. But Peregrine hadn’t done anything. “He was making sure I wasn’t being taken advantage of.”

“What right—”

“The right of every adult everywhere. The responsibility.” Peregrine managed to look down his nose at Ty, who was quite a bit taller. “We can’t turn our backs. Someone else will help them. Someone else will do something. You are someone else. So am I.”

“But…”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones, for your concern.” Damien held out his hand. “The next young person might not be as lucky as I am.”

Peregrine shook Damien’s hand and walked back toward the celebration.

Ty let out a huge sigh. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

Damien took his arm. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

“Even if it wasn’t needed or wanted?”

“You are always wanted.” Damien stood on his tiptoes and pulled Ty close. If men couldn’t kiss in public during Pride, when could they?

Ty’s kiss was fantastic as always. He kept his arm around Damien all the way back to the festivities. “Why do you think he picked you?”

“I’m young. You and Kenneth are obviously adults. I’m probably not the only one he took aside today and made sure I was where I wanted to be. And I do want to be with you.”

Ty squeezed him. Then he sighed. “I must look like a dirty old man to a kid like him.”

“Not old. He’s as old as you are.”

“What?”

Peregrine had his sketch book and was ignoring the juggler who made jokes while ogling the pale giant at Peregrine’s side. A darker man with his long hair up in a ponytail was sleeking the giant’s spectacular muscles with the bottle of sunscreen Peregrine had been carrying.

Several people stopped to watch.

The giant was magnificent. From a distance. He towered over Peregrine. Damien would look like a baby beside him. The giant said something and Peregrine lifted his face for a kiss. The darker man added his and then covered all those tattoos with sunscreen.

“It’s all right to look.” Kenneth touched Damien’s elbow.

“But three in our bed is enough.” Ty nodded.

Damien held out his hands for theirs. “I’m exactly where I want to be. Do we still have free tickets to tonight’s show?”

Kenneth checked his pocket. “Four.”

“I need three.” Just in case Peregrine was willing to share a copy of whatever he was sketching.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peregrine is part of the triple from A Balance of Harmonies, a story I have over at FictionPress. Same user name.


	28. Pride Week, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty has to make nice to the nosy guy

Ty stood behind Damien’s shoulder and tried to look intimidating. Sure the theater relied on repeat customers, but did everyone need to flirt with Damien? And no he wasn’t going next door for drinks later. He was going home with Ty and Kenneth.

Jaron walked through the crowd encouraging people to talk to the actors. How many of these people attended for free? Most probably. The house had been full and now the lobby was. Go home, people! This wasn’t a continuation of Pride. If they wanted to keep the celebration going, they could do it somewhere else.

A man held Damien’s hand for too long. Ty wrapped his arms around Damien’s waist. Damien made a witty comment and the guy let go. The guy gave the same stupid pickup lines as the one two people ago. Damien deflected. When the guy finally left, Damien put a hand on Ty chest. “Go.”

“Why?”

“I only ever get threesome offers when you’re here.”

Ty grounded his teeth.

“Go.” Damien gave him a peck then wiped Ty’s lips with his thumb. “There. Now go.”

“They’ll flirt.”

“Of course they will. But I’m going home with you. Now go.”

Ty went.

“Possessive boyfriend?” asked the next woman in line.

Sure, Ty was possessive. Damien was his boyfriend after all. How would she like having her significant other flirted with in front of her all the time?

That might be why Damien didn’t want him to show up right after the show anymore. Claimed it was bad for Ty’s blood pressure. Maybe it was. But still…

Kenneth was standing with several other people listening to Flannigan being a one man play. Flannigan so loved his theater stories.

“Ty!” Ty’s arm was seized.

Jaron.

“What?” Was there a fire? A robbery? Had Jaron’s lease been canceled?

“He’s here!”

“He?”

Jaron frowned like Ty was the idiot here. “The artist I’ve been trying to get to paint my troupe for three years. And here he is in my theater!” Jaron actually bounced. “Go. Go talk to him. Don’t let him leave!”

“Who?”

The lobby was packed. Which of these hundred or so people was he looking for? And why?

“Peregrine. He’s standing beside the Norse god.”

The guy who made Ty feel tiny was standing beside the nosy guy from this afternoon. No. Ty was not going there. But they were in the group around Flannigan. Maybe Jaron meant someone else. “Why do you want him?”

Jaron gasp. “What? He’s only the best local artist. He’s still rising. The painting themselves will be worth a fortune.”

“Can you afford that?” Mortgaging the troupe for a bit of paint slashed on canvas was stupid. And would also dig into Ty’s pockets if they folded. Jaron was one of his best clients.

“He’s eccentric. He might charge us a fortune and he might give them to us for free, but right now he won’t do it for love or money. I’ve got to figure out how to change his mind.” Jaron bit a nail, which he only did if he was really worried. He sighed. “I’ll deal with that. You just keep him here.”

“Why again?” Nothing was worth that much trouble.

“The prestige alone… Just do it.” Jaron turned away.

“And who again?”

Jaron growled and pointed. “The guy between Thor and the woman with the shaved head.”

Please, not him. “The tattoo guy?”

Jaron stopped. “I suppose he has tattoos.”

But tonight the noisy guy was covered collar bones to wrists and ankles in a tight black t-shirt and painted on black jeans.

“Just go talk to him.” Jaron pushed Ty toward the group. “I’m counting on you.”

Whatever. Ty joined the group.

“This one again.” Ty ran a finger down Kenneth’s neck.

Flannigan flipped Ty off without missing a beat. Ty grinned back. Flannigan gave the punch line.

People stepped closer to Flannigan and shook his hand. He was always an attention junky.

“Old friend?” asked the lady with the shaved head.

“Very old.” Ty mimed using a cane. Flannigan flipped him off then hugged him and thumped his back. Ty thumped back just as hard. Chloë rolled her eyes. She should really be used to this by now.

Several people asked questions about theater, which Flannigan answered with yet another story. Luckily Flannigan had turned around to do it, so the tattoo guy and his men weren’t among the audience.

Might as well get started. “I heard someone here’s a famous artist.”

The bald woman laughed. “Famous? I’m not sure about that, but you’ve got your pick of artists. Glass,” she pointed at herself and then at the people next to her, “paint, pencil, words, fabric. Choose your medium.”

“Glass?” Ty let the conversation drift. He was an artist in his own way and liked to listen to other people talk about their creations. Besides the woman had obviously come with the nosy guy and this way Ty didn’t have to talk to him to keep him from leaving.

“Who told you there was an artist here?” asked the Hispanic man—Emil, the bald woman, Zan, had said.

“The director is having hysterics over some artist.”

“Some artist?”

The nosy guy—Peregrine—crossed his arms. “I don’t do advertisements.”

Ty shrugged. “I’m not asking you to. Jaron probably can’t afford it anyway.”

Kenneth gave Ty a weird look. Did he know what Jaron had asked Ty to do? Okay, Jaron was a friend and what helped him might also line Ty’s wallet and if nothing else maybe Jaron could convince Damien he could work fewer days a week so he’d be home nights. Kenneth was missing him.

“I just don’t see why a couple of portraits would be advertising. What have you got against advertising anyway?”

“Kurt here,” Peregrine took Thor’s hand, “is in advertising. One in the family is enough.”

Kurt grinned down. Maybe an inside joke.

“Do you even do portraits?”

Peregrine grinned. “I do everything.”

“Except advertising.”

“Except advertising. Still life, landscapes, portraits, what have you. Who would these portraits be of? I was under the impression he wanted something he could use as a poster.”

Ty hadn’t asked. “He wants more than one. I thought it was just the actors. In costume, out? I don’t know. Or maybe a scene from a play, but I think he really wants to own something you’ve done.”

Peregrine frowned. Not the flattery loving type then.

Damien wrapped Ty’s arm around his waist. Ty pulled him closer. Damien was out of costume and makeup. Was it that late already?

“You were on stage.”

Damien grinned. “I was. Thank you for the sketch earlier.”

“You’re welcome.” Peregrine narrowed his eyes. “Are you someone I’d be painting?”

Damien looked up at Ty.

“Jaron wants to show off.”

Kenneth chuckled. Jaron loved garish clothing and his every entrance was a performance according to Kenneth. Ty knew enough theater types, heck he was one, that all that was normal.

“With art?”

“Some portraits hanging in the lobby. Or maybe fake posters or something. But Peregrine’s said no.” Ty shrugged. It was time they started heading home.

“Wait.” Peregrine cocked his head. “I’d go for portraits. What’s his budget?”

“I have no idea. Goodbye.”

Jaron was on his own. Ty didn’t want Damien sitting for Peregrine. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? He was not going to let his boyfriend spend hours alone with that nosy guy.

“But…” Damien stopped walking.

“If you want your portrait done we can find someone else to do it.”

“And why is that?” Kenneth rubbed Ty’s arm. “I looked him up today and he doesn’t do bad painting. I was thinking of asking how much one of all of us would be.”

“No.”

“No?” Damien raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see what you have against him. He was just being nice.”

“Nice? He got you alone and asked you uncomfortable questions. How is that nice?”

“Excuse me,” said Emil. “But finding the truth is part of what makes Peregrine who he is. In art and in life.”

Jaron was talking rapidly to Peregrine. No. This wasn’t going to happen.

“Besides,” Emil smiled. “I’ll be right in the next room.”

“Ty didn’t think Peregrine was going to do anything.” Kenneth waved his hands. “Just listening to people flirting with Damien puts Ty in a bad mood.”

“Princess.”

Who was Peregrine calling…

Peregrine touched Emil’s arm. “Princess, we are going to a coffee shop to discuss details.”

Emil’s grin was bright. “Thank you.”

Peregrine turned to Ty. “You guys are welcome too. Since Damien’s sitting, he should have some say in the results.”

Damien grinned. “Great idea.”

“Kurt is going to meet us there. He’s bringing my portfolio. For you three, I was thinking the Viking, the druid and the Roman slave.”

What?

Emil giggled. “That isn’t even a real story.”

Peregrine laughed. “It was, my love. Remember.”

Emil blushed.

Another inside joke?

“Kenneth, what do you say?” Damien’s eyes were bright.

“We can go. None of us have work in the morning.”

For once.

“Don’t worry.” Peregrine waved a hand. “It won’t take long. I’ve got plans for my pretty princess tonight. Zan, Autumn? You coming?”

Deciding who was going, which coffee shops were still ope, which of those they wanted to go to, and how each person was getting there took over a half hour. Then Ty had a stranger sitting beside him in the back seat. He couldn’t just ask Kenneth to go home instead.

Kurt had arrived before them. One portfolio was just photos of painting of the three of them. Ty as Perseus? Or Persephone?

Maybe this painting thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

 


	29. Independence Day, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien makes a desison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait. I was working 40+ hour weeks and doing copy editing on a book that's being published (another 20 or so hours a week). But life is about to return to normal.

Damien gave his lips a final touch up. He was ready for curtain call with minutes to spare. Tara attached her eyelashes. “Have you given any thought to my suggestion?”

Damien blew out a breath. “I… I’m not sure.”

“You shouldn’t be working your youth away. Not like me. I have no youth left.”

Damien sat carefully. Act one dresses weren’t as easily crushed as third act ones, but he didn’t want any obvious wrinkles on stage. “You aren’t that old.”

Tara laughed. “I am, you’re just wearing your rose tinted glasses. Your fella will be my age when you’re his. You must like them old.”

“Maybe I do.” Kenneth would be just as sexy with gray hair.

“But that doesn’t answer my question? Are you going to take the fourth off?”

Damien didn’t want to think about it. “I still have a week to decide.”

“You don’t. Your understudies need the chance to do an entire play in front of an audience. A chance to fail. Before you’re gone for a whole week.”

Kenneth and Ty’s vacation. They had it planned well before he entered their lives.

“You do plan on going with them?”

Damien sighed. “Kenneth booked me tickets months ago.”

“Good for him. So you’ll get the sun and surf while the rest of us swelter.”

“Yeah.” Damien had only been to the coast a hand full of times and never to any nice beaches where the water was warm.

“You do want to go?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t want them going without him.

“Be more enthusiastic, will you? It’s not like you’re giving up your job or anything.”

“I’m not? Jaron is just going to let me take back my roles when I return?”

“Of course he will. The audience really likes you.”

“But if they come to see me, then how will they feel if I’m not here?”

“They come to see me. You’re just pretty accompaniment.”

“So anyone can just step into my roles?” That was a stupid question. Of course they could.

Tara raised an eyebrow. She was the witch that raised Rapunzel now, even without the wig and dress.

Damien got up. He didn’t even have a scene until the second act. He was ready early. Back when he was the only ingénue, he’d played the mother too. It shouldn’t be this hard to share.

“No one’s Rapunzel will ever be just like yours. Martin’s parts were all much less innocent. Same scenes, same lines, different actors. That’s good. We don’t want everyone to be the same. Drew is never going to pull innocent or brilliant, but he can snark will the best of them. He and I play off each other well. Different than you and I do, but not better or worse.”

“So Drew will get my roles?”

“When you aren’t here. But this isn’t Broadway. This is just a fun evening’s entertainment. Jaron doesn’t fire anyone. He just gives minor roles.”

“So I’ll be stuck being a stepsister.”

Tara set down her makeup brush. “Are you telling me you’ve never wanted to have those lines?” Tara shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

She got up and opened the door. “Jaron, get your skinny ass in here.”

“I don’t need—”

“Yes you do. Jaron darling, Damien is considering working Independence Day.”

Jaron frowned. “I was going to give it to Drew. Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel. He’s not in all the acts, which will be good for him. He needs the practice for your vacation.”

Damien bit his lip. “You know about my vacation?”

“Ty won’t stop talking about it.”

“Three minutes to curtain.” The stage manager looked Tara over. “Need wardrobe?”

Tara waved her away. “I’ve got this. Jaron, talk some sense into the boy.”

“Damien, if you want days off you only need to ask. You have understudies now.”

The piranhas.

“I’m ok.”

“Ty doesn’t seem to think so.”

“He mentioned it?” Ty would have some explaining to do when Damien got home.

“No.” Jaron frowned. “But I’ve known him for years. I thought it would get better once you quit the coffee shop. With Kenneth working days, how many evenings to you get together?”

No enough. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You aren’t. Come by my office. Stella, give us his three minute warning.”

The stage manager nodded.

“Damien.”

Damien followed. This was like going to the principal’s office. Jaron lifted a stack of programs off a chair. “Sit down.”

He set the stack on top of the folders on his chair and leaned against his desk. “You’re a good person and at acting. You have great rapport with the audience. You stay and talk to them. Great customer service skills.”

But, there had to be a but.

“But,” there it was, “there’s more to acting than standing on stage and spouting lines.”

Damien was being fired. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“You haven’t yet realized that the villains are the best roles.”

“What?”

“Imagine Tara as Snow White’s mother. Can’t, can you? Some people can only play certain roles. But you aren’t like that. Sure Deedee is as innocent as they come, but smart. She’s a great lead. But how would she be as a stepsister? Could you make that work?”

Damien bit his lip. He was going to lose his title roles.

Jaron smiled. “I know you can. I gave you six months to get your sea legs, but I’m going to expect more out of you soon.”

More?

“I want you to think about it for a month or so and when you get back from vacation I want to see your version of a stepsister. Is she sharp and witty? Make barbed comments that take a moment to sting? Sly? Or going the other way, try to out Innocent Cinderella? Make her look mean and cruel when she defends herself? I want to see you stepsister.”

Jaron dug though the papers on his desk. “Here it is. Toads and Diamonds. I’ll need two ingénue for this. You could pull off the sweet one easily enough, but the selfish one? Could you make her a lovable villain? Make people believe that even with snakes and toads coming out of her mouth she will live happier than her diamond dropping sister?”

The papers were more notes than lines. The play hadn’t been written yet.

“Look through it, but leave it here. We can go over it once Drew has enough nights under his belt to play a lead. He needs to build up confidence.”

Confidence? “He’s got confidence.”

Jaron laughed. “You may have noticed that the biggest braggarts have the softest centers.

Damien nodded.

The stage manager poked her head in. “In three.”

“Thanks,” said Jaron. “Damien, it’s time for the next step. Think about how Deedee would be different evil, and how she’d be the same. And enjoy next Thursday off. You deserve it.”

Damien nodded. He almost hoped Drew bombed. But he wouldn’t be here to see him win the night either.

Damien hurried to the wing. The wardrobe assistant was ready with the unwieldy wig. When the stage went dark, he carried his brush and mirror on stage and fastened the “hair” rope to his waist. The lights came on to Rapunzel brushing the end of her very long hair.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

Damien walked across the stage and through a coil of rope into the left wing. Tara entered holding it and they played out their scene without tripping on the rope littering the stage. Emma wasn’t so lucky, but her version of this prince was a bit of a klutz.

This was a Rapunzel that ending with twins—baby dolls, with pink or blue ribbons on their christening gowns and bonnets—but not the version that ended in a wasteland. How would Rapunzel survive, let alone care for two infants without out help and ready food?

At the end, Damien bowed the first time with the twins then alone. He got roses. Pink tonight. The patrons were friendly, but didn’t stay too long. Damien cleaned his makeup off and changed. Ty welcomed him with open arms.

“I love you.”

Ty grinned. “Good.”

Damien dragged him to the car. “I’m thinking of taking Wednesdays off. Maybe Thursdays too.”

Ty bit his lip. “If that’s what you want.”

“Or maybe Sundays so we all have one day off together.”

“That will make Kenneth happy.”

“And you?”

“Why the sudden change?”

“A different perspective.” A better one. He could do more with less stage time, both developing Deedee and with his men.

The adrenalin was still running strong. Hopefully Kenneth was still awake.

 

 


	30. Independence Day, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth keeps busy

Kenneth surveyed the street. Ty, Flannigan and one of Flannigan’s neighbors had carried workbenches into the street and were now arguing over how long the fuses needed to be between the fireworks. They did this every year, not just the setting up, but the disagreeing over what had happened the year before. Ty brought out his phone and the three watched a video.

“Right there,” Ty said. “That’s the pause I was talking about. How long was the fuse last year?”

The neighbor went into her garage and found last years plans and compared them to what they’d hashed out during the barbecue. “Right here.”

“But,” Flannigan leaned closer, “didn’t we make it longer than we planned last year?”

“No,” said the neighbor. “Two and seven eighths inches.”

“No,” Ty said. “You’re right. We changed it at the last minute. Because it was too short the year before.”

“No,” said the neighbor. “This wasn’t the one we changed. This one. I marked the changes.”

“Really?” Ty frowned as he looked over the paper. “Oh, that’s the next one.” He lifted his phone.

They would be at this all night. Kenneth spent most July fourths entertaining himself while Ty was lost in gunpowder and logistics.

Chloe came out of her house carrying three beers. “Last round.”

The three stopped debating and took their drinks. They’d be nursing these drinks for the next few hours. The homeowners association like the fireworks display and even printed out fliers and marked out parking for visitors, but only as long as the alcohol and fireworks didn’t mix.

And to be fair to the entertainers, the beer chest was closed and taken down the street to someone else’s garage.

“Did you want one?” Damien leaned on Kenneth’s arm.

Kenneth stepped behind him and held him close. “I’m good.”

He was, with Damien.

Chloe sighed. Damien turned back to the house. “Need a hand?”

“The garbage needs taken out.”

“I can do that.”

The neighbor’s husband sighed. “She always complains that the sparks damage her workbench and she spends a month getting in clean and smooth again, but here she is, eager to get it marked up again.”

“Dad. Dad!” The neighbor’s daughter waved the Sorry board at him from their front lawn.

“I’m coming. I’m coming.” He was in charge of board game duty this year. Last year Kenneth had walked a bunch of grade schoolers though Candyland and soothed tattered feelings. It was like being home for Thanksgiving, but with less judgment.

“I’ll take the little ones.” Another neighbors grabbed a passing toddler. “Book time on my front lawn.”

Several parents took her up on it. Someone else brought out blankets and the kids curled up in the shade.

Kenneth should go in and help out. Damien brought out the garbage. It just barely fit in the can. “Chloe says there’s a nice walk down by the river.”

“There is.” A solitary walk was another way to waste time in Chloe and Flannigan’s neighborhood.

“I’d like to see it.”

Getting ready only took a few minutes. Chloe foisted a picnic blanket off on them along with water and snacks. Kenneth wasn’t planning on making a day of it, but he didn’t protest.

Damien interrupted Ty for a kiss and then took Kenneth’s hand. “Where to?”

Kenneth led the way down the sidewalk and through a path between subdivisions as Damien told a funny story about work. Kenneth’s stories were never that funny, but he hadn’t had a chance to explain Monday’s copier room incident. When they ran out of sidewalk they walked at the edge of the pavement. Then the pavement became gravel and turned. He pointed ahead. “We could go down the road and enter the park that way or go down this path.”

Damien chose the path between trees. It wasn’t wide enough for both of them side by side, but this way he could watch Damien’s behind, which was very nice. Damien turned and grinned. “Chloe gave us a blanket. Anywhere we can hang out?”

“The fields are mostly near the entrance.” Kenneth nodded back the way they’d come. “But there are a few wide places.”

“Good.”

Kenneth directed Damien left at the next fork and then down the middle path at the next junction. That way led to the boardwalk around the wetlands part of the park. The boardwalk was wide enough to walk together on. Damien stopped at a viewpoint. “Here?”

Kenneth touched his arm. “I have somewhere better in mind.”

“Lead on.”

The path twisted and split and twisted again, then the woods opened up to a meadow. Most of the year it was probably a swamp. Here the boardwalk made a large loop around a small pond. Damien grabbed Kenneth’s arm. “Do you see it?”

A heron preened itself next to the part of the boardwalk the jutted out into to pond. It turned its face to them then went back to cleaning it’s wing. Damien took a step closer. Had he never been this close to a heron before? He swatted down and stared.

The bird spread its wings and took off over Damien. He fell to his ass, but the bird really hadn’t been close enough to hit him.

He laughed and got to his feet. “He was saying he wasn’t leaving because of us.”

Kenneth joined the laughter. “He might even come back. If we wait here long enough.”

“Really?”

Kenneth walked out onto the “pier” part of the boardwalk and laid out the blanket. He sat down and lifted a hand. Damien took it and sat down. Kenneth pulled him close. Damien’s kisses were fantastic.

But they were in a public place even if the were alone. Kenneth lay back on the blanket. Damien rested beside him. They watched the little birds fly about. Noise came from the water. Fish? Kenneth and Damien speculated about how they’d gotten there and if they could survive. Some summers the pond dried up.

But they whispered they conversation. Maybe the heron was return. Maybe it wouldn’t, but quiet time with Damien, just enjoying being together was wonderful. And the very best Independence Day afternoon in as long as Kenneth could remember.


	31. Independence Day, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty notes changes and makes plans

Ty glanced back at Damien and Kenneth. They were laughing together while he was stuck cleaning up after the fireworks display. Normally Kenneth jumped in and helped him. The sooner he was done, the sooner they went home. But tonight Kenneth had cuddled with Damien instead of hovering near Ty ready with whatever Ty might need.

Ty should be happy Kenneth had company. If he was a good boyfriend he would be.

Damien skipped up. “Ty, that was wonderful. What do you have planned for me next?”

Hunger rose. But Ty still had a duty. “We need to clean up this mess first. Watch your hands. Some things are still hot.”

Cleaning up went faster this year with Damien helping and the neighbor’s oldest daughter shining a flashlight on each bit of trash she found. Used fireworks went into buckets of water until morning to be safe, but wrappers and pop bottles went in trash or recycling. It would be easier to see in the morning, but even a gentle breeze during the night would spread the mess around.

“The roof!” The neighbor’s daughter did a somersault in the grass.

Did Ty want to take his men to the roof and watch the distant river display? Or did he just want to take them home and have his way with them?

The second, obviously. But he draped and arm over Damien’s shoulder. “Have you seen a big fireworks display?”

Damien bit his lip. “It’s too late to go, isn’t it?”

“We can see from Flannigan’s roof.” Kenneth rubbed his shoulder against Ty’s arm. Yum.

“From here?”

So, they were staying. What time was it?

Flannigan whistled. “Everyone up who’s going up.”

Damien hurried over to the ladder. Kenneth chuckled. “We are giving him lots of new experiences.”

“Good.” Ty kissed Kenneth then helped Chloe get her basket up to the roof. The blankets were Kenneth’s duty.

Flannigan sat on the top of the roof. Damien lowered himself slowly, but stood again as Ty climbed up. “Here?”

“You can sit there. Or you can sit on my lap.”

Damien grinned.

Ty handed Chloe’s basket to Flannigan and sat down. He held Damien’s hand as Damien sat down slowly, but not between Ty’s legs. Oh well. Kenneth spread a blanket across their laps and sat on Ty’s other side. Ty bumped his arm. “Do you want to guard Damien’s other side?”

Damien scooted over Ty’s leg and leaned back against Ty’s chest. “I’m fine here.”

Kenneth cuddled closer. “We just want some time with you.”

“Don’t get mushy.” Flannigan dug through the basket. Something fell out and tumbled down the roof. Flannigan pointed the flashlight down.

Chloe poked her head over the roof line. “If you don’t want mushiness, Olivia invited me to her roof.”

Flannigan walked down the roof and picked up whatever it was. “Is Olivia’s roof better than ours?”

“She thinks so.”

“With that tree? No. You’re better off here.”

A red burst lit the sky. The red dripped down like spines of a giant umbrella. Then a boom sounded Three more had gone off before Flannigan sat down at which point Chloe remembered something. Flannigan made her sit while he got the missing item so Chloe wouldn’t miss the whole display. He was back in just a moment.

Damien oohed and aahed at each light and burst. Maybe next year they should take him to the river. He deserved to experience everything.

The Saturn fireworks were Ty’s favorite. The spirals were really good too. Bursts came in twos and threes then five at once. This was almost the end. Colors swirled around each other. After the finale, the sky faded back to black. Ty kissed Damien’s neck. “Did you like it?”

Damien cuddled close. “I liked yours too.”

“But it’s a good thing our men aren’t competing.” Chloe stood up.

“Hey, mine was great.”

“Yours was great, honey, but that much gunpowder requires a river and licenses.”

Flannigan tossed his blanket over his shoulder. “I could get a license.”

Ty leaned back. He needed to get up, but not yet. “Without me, my friend. I spend enough time away from my men.”

“What kind of friend are you?”

Ty laughed. Flannigan must be pouting. “A friend was a numb ass.”

Damien scooted away. “Sorry.”

“Slowly.” Ty put out his hand. Damien wasn’t comfortable up here. Damien took his hand and slowly stood up.

Kenneth stood and folded the blanket. “You get him down. I’ll help Chloe.”

Flannigan crossed his arms. “I’ll help her. She’s my wife.”

How much beer had Flannigan had? Ty got Damien down safety and opened Flannigan’s front door. “Go get your stuff. We’re going home.”

Damien looked down. “Did we overstay our welcome?”

No. Some years they talked and played games until dawn. He put on a leer and looked Damien up and down. “I’ve got plans for you.”

Damien grinned.

Ty went back outside. Kenneth met his gaze. “We leaving?”

“Yeah. Get the car?” They had parked blocks away to make room for the fireworks. Kenneth nodded.

Ty climbed the ladder and interrupted the bickering. “Guys, we’re going?”

Chloe didn’t ask them to stay like normal.

“Call me tomorrow, okay?”

Kenneth drove up. Damien put their bag in the backseat. “Ready?”

“I’ll be right there.” Ty jumped the last few steps to the ground. When he was almost at the car, Flannigan called his name. Ty stopped and turned.

Flannigan waved him onto the grass. “Sorry I’m such a pain tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Give me a break.” Flannigan slapped his arm. “Do you know what my wife laid on me just now? That thing I went to do? She left a positive pregnancy test in the bathroom. I thought it was a joke.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. I don’t know what we’re, what she’s, going to decide to do, so don’t tell anyone.” He glanced at the car.

“My lips are sealed. But call me tomorrow.”

Flannigan nodded. “Will do.”

Ty got in the passenger seat. Chloe had said—not three weeks ago—that they were going to wait another two years before trying to have kids. At least unplanned babies weren’t something Ty had to worry about. “Kenneth do we still have ice cream? I’m in the mood for a smoothie.”

Kenneth grinned. “We could buy some.”

“Maybe. And we could eat it after we make love.” He put his hand on Kenneth’s thigh. “Unless you need to sleep.”

Kenneth had to work tomorrow. Damien did too, but not until the afternoon.

“I think I can stay up.” Kenneth grinned. “If you have something planned.”

“I do.” That silk sheet that wouldn’t actually stay on the mattress… that micro-mini kilt that he hadn’t yet given to Damien that showed off much more than it covered… the table?… Yeah, the table with something to pad it… Only what should Kenneth wear? A towel, hanging low from his hips… Ty would figure out the rest by the time they got home.


	32. Ty's Birthday, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth waits at the airport

Kenneth sat down on the bench. Kids ran past. The airport was crowded with them. And they all must be going on the next few flights because this was past the security lines. Damien leaned on Kenneth’s arm. “Will I like it?”

“I hope so.” Kenneth wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t want to draw attention to his group. Damien still looked very young. Hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem once they got to their destination. “We haven’t been to Ireland before. Last year we visited the Basque region of France.”

“I heard the food’s good there.”

“It is.”

“And we have a cabin by the ocean?”

“A cottage, but I believe it’s on the cliffs above. Plus we have hiking trails and old ruins to look at and one of the mansions is open to the public once a week. We’ll stay busy.”

Damien grinned. “But not too busy.”

No, not too busy.

“Catch a load of that.” Ty sat down beside Kenneth and nodded toward a young man walking on his hands much to the delight of three small boys. They all looked just like the man holding the youngest one. The oldest boy put down his book and set his hands on the floor. The young man flipped back to his feet and spotted the boy. The youngest clambered for a turn. The middle one leaned against his father with a blanket in his lap.

The young man kissed the other man as he picked up the youngest. He flipped the boy over and held his ankles as the little guy walked on his hands across the bench.

“Why would a couple want all their children to look like only one of them?” Damien nodded to the family.

Ty shrugged. Kenneth looked the young man over. “Maybe the kids are older than the relationship. Do you think he’s old enough to have kids in grade school?”

Damien frowned. “He could be older than he looks.”

Ty leaned closer to Kenneth. “One of them is asking about visiting their Mommy, so I’m guessing you’re right.”

Damien shivered. “Coming out would be harder with a wife and kids, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe they used a family friend as surrogate and they are just visiting her.”

Kenneth still don’t think the younger member of the couple looked old enough to have a kid that old, even if they decided to have kids the moment they started dating. “Have you ever thought about having kids?”

Damien bit his lip. “I’d like to give a kid the life I never had, but I’m fine without.”

He was staring at the floor. How serious were these thoughts? Kenneth had thought about adding to his and Ty’s family with kids up until he’d seen Ty drooling over Damien and decided to take their family in a different direction.

But they couldn’t adopt with the three of them and no kid was more important than having Ty and Damien with him.

Ty leaned back. “I don’t see the need to spread my seed. A kid wouldn’t have to be my flesh and blood to be mine.”

“So you wanted kids?” Damien bit his lip.

Ty shrugged. “What time will we be getting in? Our time. I know it’s day their time.”

Kenneth did the calculations. Ty sighed. “I hope I sleep this time. Not sleeping on the plane wrecks havoc with the rest of vacation.”

Damien reached across Kenneth’s lap and patted Ty’s knee. Ty put his hand over Damien’s. A kid ran past holding a large drink. He tripped on his shoelace and the drink went flying. It, miraculously, landed with the lid still on. But a second kid, chasing the first, tripped over him and tumbled onto the cup, which then burst, spraying four kids who to that point had been playing quietly. Scream sounded. Children not even involved burst into tears. Kenneth was never so glad not to be a parent.

He got up. “Why don’t we get something to eat?”

They left the noisy kids and their stressed out parents in the lobby. Kenneth and Ty wouldn’t be taking this vacation if they’d chosen kids instead of Damien. And they certainly wouldn’t have had as much fun last night. Kenneth’s ass was still sore, but Ty’s was probably more so since he didn’t bottom very often and Damien had been very enthusiastic.

Damien could really keep up his energy. With no work or hard set plans, they could sleep in as long as they wanted. Or go to bed early.

And the forced hands-off time of traveling would make their times together even sweeter.

 


	33. Ty's Birthday, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty's talks about private stuff in public

Ty stretched out in the aisle seat. He couldn’t get comfortable. He hated the getting there of any vacation, but planes, for all their cramped seats really were the fastest way. Maybe next year they could go to Victoria BC. That was faster by car if one counted all the time spent in an airport.

He closed his eyes and settled down. The lights around the flight attendants’ station shone pink though his eyelids. Why couldn’t he be one of those people who could sleep anywhere?

But one night without sleep wasn’t going to kill him.

Even if tomorrow was his birthday.

Damien stretched and stood up. So he wasn’t asleep either. “Excuse me.”

Ty moved his legs. Damien headed for the bathroom. Someone slipped out of a seat closer to it and got there ahead of him. Damien chatted with a woman bouncing a baby on her hip. After Damien took his turn, he held the sleeping child while the mother took a turn.

Kenneth leaned close. “He looks so sweet holding a baby.”

He did. “Without us, he might someday have a family of his own.”

And if not for Kenneth’s wonderful gift, Ty might be broaching the subject of kids with Kenneth right now.

But Damien was more than worth the absence.

He passed the baby back and then stood for a moment talking to the mother and stroking the baby’s hair.

Ty’s chest ached. He hadn’t wanted child right away, but a life without them… forcing Damien into a life without them…

Damien came back and sat down. Kenneth asked about the child and Damien explained how the mother came to be traveling with just the baby and how the kid woke whenever she sat down or tried to lay the baby down. But she had help at the end of her flight, so she could sleep tomorrow away if she needed to.

Then they all tried to sleep again.

The couple across the aisle and a row behind started talking about an illness in the family. Ty didn’t want to hear about cancer right now.

He got up. He didn’t really need the bathroom, but it was a good excuse to stretch his legs. The mother was still there. The baby was even cuter up close. Ty stepped away. He had kids too much on his mind already.

When he got back to his seat, Damien gestured him in to the window seat. Ty leaned forward and whispered. “I won’t fit.”

Damien grinned. “Kenneth and I found a way.”

The way was Ty in the window seat. Kenneth leaning against him and Damien with his back against the wall and his legs across both their laps. This was nice and cozy.

Kenneth pulled a blanket over them. Even better.

Damien shifted a bit then snuggled closer. He was quiet, but not asleep. Ty petted his hair. “Something on your mind?”

Damien bit his lip. Kenneth kissed Ty’s arm. “Something on yours?”

They had to know how distracted he’d been. “Flannigan asked me not to tell.”

Kenneth rubbed Ty’s arm. “Then don’t.”

“But I…” Ty owed it to his men to be honest and he couldn’t tell his part without the bit about Flannigan. “I think I have to.”

Damien rubbed his cheek against Ty’s chest. “We’ll be here for you, when you’re ready.”

What was it about being in a dimly lit room surrounded by sleeping and sleepy people that made one want to bear their soul? Now he was going to be the person talking about private things in public. “Chloe… No. Flannigan and I have always joked that we’d start a family at the same time. In two years, Chloe will have paid maternity leave and her sister will be able to watch the baby once she goes back to work. Even before I met Kenneth. Even before Chloe got this job. It was just a joke, but I thought maybe… Our kids would be raise together, be as good of friends as we are.”

Ty sighed. “Or hate each other’s guts, I guess. Together anyway.”

“But,” Damien prompted.

“But their birth control failed. Not too terribly surprising with the failure rate over five years.” Flannigan brought that up every time they’d spoken. “They’ve been together for three times that.”

Kenneth rubbed Damien’s leg. “What did she decide to do?”

This part of the story wasn’t his. But in a way it was. “Chloe researched her options, of course. She’s young and healthy, right? Everything should be fine when they have a kid they planned.”

“But?”

“But her doctor sounded surprised that she’d managed to get pregnant at all. Something to do her girl parts.” Ty had zoned out for that part of the conversation. Flannigan’s pain and fear was more important than the details.

“So even if we had kids, which doesn’t seem likely now,” Ty rubbed Damien’s back, “their kid will be years older than ours.”

“Did you want kids,” Damien bit his lip. “Or did you want another link to your friend?”

Both. Ty sighed. “I know I’m not grown up yet. I’m not ready to be a parent, but I want… I want to be to someone what Aunt Millie was to me. And kids are cute and loud and independent and needy. And if I died without anyone ever calling me Papa, I’ll have missed something.”

Kenneth rubbed his eyes. “Maybe we can just be the best uncles ever.”

But that wasn’t what Kenneth wanted.

“They won’t be able to have more kids?”

Ty sighed. “I don’t know, but Flannigan’s been acting like it’s a death sentence. I’m trying to empathize, but I keep seeing what I’m losing. Crazy, right? No one was ever going to let the three of us raise a kid and I’m not giving either of you up. I made peace with that months ago.”

Damien touched Ty’s lips. “It’s okay to say you’re hurting.”

“But I shouldn’t be. This isn’t even about me.”

“Everything’s personal when it’s happening to someone you care about.” Kenneth pressed Ty’s fingers to his lips.

Ty really had the best men.

“Two years would have been perfect. The kid would be out of school before Kenneth retires. The business would be big enough to hire another person or two. But then I met you, Damien, and all that went out the window.”

Damien pressed Ty’s other hand against his side. “No need to make any decisions now. We could wait a few years and adopt a five year old. Or even siblings. Someone the same age as Chloe and Flannigan’s kid. Past the diaper, crying stage.”

He nodded towards the mother still standing under the lights.

Ty snorted. Oops. The people around them where trying to sleep.

A flight attendant pushed a cart down the aisle. He stopped and spoke in low tones to passengers. He had extra pillows and blankets and bottles of water.

He stopped by Ty’s row and passed over a large cupcake with a LED candle on top. “We are flying over midnight. Happy birthday.”

That was what Damien and Kenneth were conspiring about. Ty thanked the flight attendant and he moved on.

Kenneth leaned close. “I was pretty sure you won’t be asleep.”

Kenneth knew him so well.

Ty opened the container and turned the candle off. “I think I’ll save it for morning.”

He’d already brushed his teeth.

Damien kissed Ty. “Know what else we’re getting you?”

Ty couldn’t begin to guess. Until Damien put his hand on the front of Ty’s pants. “The restroom isn’t really big enough for three, but if it was just a quickie…”

Ty glanced at Kenneth. He generally wasn’t a bathroom sex kind of guy, but he grinned. “Happy Birthday.”

This was really going to be Ty’s best birthday yet.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I have to listen to Christmas music at work, I've written a bunch of drabbles (exactly 100 word stories). I'll give one away to everyone that comments before Christmas. (No guarantees that you'll ever have heard of the song, though. Little Christmas Tree, I Wanna Lasso Santa Claus, and Merry Texas Christmas are all new to me this year)


	34. Ty's Birthday, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien dodges unwanted attention and gets attention he wants.

Damien looked around the room. Cottage was misstating things. This wasn’t some old building converted for summer lodgers. This was brand new and completely up to date while still being in a cottage style. Probably for the best as Ty was having to bend to get through the front door. Short ceilings would have made this the vacation from hell.

The lady at the front desk had decided they were all Irish and upgraded their package. Ty might actually have Irish in him, but Damien’s hair was dyed. And his eyes were blue. He wasn’t one of the dark Irish the lady thought he was. He was of Polish decent. But he managed to keep his mouth shut as she fussed over him.

Light flowed into the bedroom. He sat on the bed. Comfy.

The lady gave Kenneth a tour. Ty asked about hiking trails as he tried unsuccessfully to get her out of the cottage. She came into the bedroom and grinned at Damien. “We’ll have to get you a bed, lovey.”

He didn’t need a bed. He was sharing the big one with Kenneth and Ty. She even offered to bring in an extra dresser. He took a deep breath. “We’re near the ocean, aren’t we? How cold is the water?”

He let her led him outside. A set of stairs ended at the beach. She wanted him to bundle up before he went down, but the day was warm and the breeze was nice. He walked up the beach as far as the jetty and then came back. He made it to the cabin without being cornered again.

Ty and Kenneth were inside. Ty grinned. “I was about to go look for you. How’s the beach?”

“It would be better with you.” Damien took off his shoes. He should dump the sand outside, but he didn’t want the desk lady to see him.

Kenneth ran his fingers through Damien’s hair. “What do you need?”

Was his grumpiness showing? “Maybe I’m just tired.”

Ty dropped his pants. He was commando. He stretched. “That bed looks so good. Anyone want to join me?”

Yes. Damien looked at Kenneth. “You coming?”

“In a bit.”

Did Kenneth want him to wait?

Kenneth kissed Damien’s fingers. “Have some fun. I’ll join you for a nap.”

“If you’re sure.”

Kenneth nodded. “And, Ty, as a birthday present, for this vacation only…”

Ty set his hands on Damien’s hips. “Yeah?”

“The no ass rule unless we all are together does not apply.”

Ty’s hardness rubbed Damien’s backside. “Really?”

“Really.” Kenneth kissed Ty over Damien’s shoulder. “The lube is on the dresser. Have fun.”

“Thank you.” Damien threw his arms around Kenneth’s neck and gave him a deep kiss.

Ty laughed. He tugged on Damien’s hips as Kenneth stepped back. “You’d think it was your present.”

Damien turned and stepped against Ty. “Isn’t it?”

Ty laughed again. “You really are something else.”

Damien shed his clothes and jumped onto the bed. He lay his head against the pile of pillows and spread his legs. Ty shed his shirt and stalked toward the bed. Kenneth blew Damien a kiss and closed the bedroom door. A moment later the front door opened and shut.

And then Ty straddled Damien. “How would you like to start?”

“My turn?”

Ty licked his lips. “I owe you for helping me sleep on the plane.”

“Is that all?”

“And for feeling you inside me for the entire flight.”

Good. “Have you ever thought of tattoos? It could say ‘Damien’ here.” He put his hand on Ty’s left butt cheek. “And ‘Kenneth’ here.” He put his hand on Ty’s right butt cheek.

Ty grinned. “Possessive, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

“Good.”

Ty leaned down and gently kissed Damien. Damien pulled him closer. The kisses moved down Damien’s cheek and jaw and neck. Very nice and very, very sexy, but it put Ty too far away to kiss. Damien twisted and licked Ty’s arm. Ty laughed. Damien twisted more. He got a hold of Ty’s right nipple and chewed on it. Ty moaned and turned his attention to Damien’s right nipple. He preferred to be sucked and Ty knew how to do it to perfection.

When both his nipples were hard and swollen with attention, Damien moved further down Ty’s body. He had something else that was hard and swollen, but as much as Damien wanted to drink Ty down, he wanted this to last.

He gave his full attention to Ty’s belly button, then that sensitive spot on Ty’s hip. Ty gasp and moaned and panted. Of course so was Damien. Ty did that thing along the crease between Damien’s leg and torso, which was powerful all by itself, but Ty’s hair brushed Damien’s cock. Damien hips thrust all by themselves. He didn’t want to come. Not yet. Not alone.

Ty rubbed his nose down into Damien’s balls. “You are so close.”

Too close.

“Come now, for me, and I promise to suck you until you come again.” And then he maneuvered Damien’s balls into the place they retracted with just his tongue.

Damien lost all thought.

Ty stroked his hair. He was grinning. “You make me so proud.”

Damien reached up and ran a finger through the cum on Ty’s chest. “And dirty.”

Ty licked Damien’s finger. “Mighty good dirt you have there.”

Damien rolled his eyes.

Ty kissed him. “I feel like such a great lover with you. Just look at your pleasure,” He ran two fingers up Damien’s belly, “and I didn’t have to touch your cock to get it.”

“I just come too quickly.”

“Don’t say that.” Ty rubbed his forehead against the side of Damien’s neck. “Let me have a little pride.”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever done that for.”

“Thank you.” Ty sat up and looked around. “I think we’re backwards on the bed.”

Most of the pillows were still under Damien’s feet. He pointed that way. “I believe you are supposed to be up there blowing me.”

“Demanding, aren’t you?”

“Would you want me any other way?”

Ty bit his lip. “After you come this time, or many the next, I want to be in you.”

Kenneth’s present. “Just how many times do you want me to come?”

Ty tapped his chin. “Six.”

“Six? Right now?” Last time he’d come that much, he’d slept for ten hours afterward. They were having dinner tonight, right?

“Six sounds right to me.”

“Does it?” Damien sat up. “And just how many times will you come?”

Ty grinned. “That’s up to you.”

“Is it?” Damien pounced. He knew just how to make Ty lose his cool. He wanted to wring Ty dry, but he should save at least one for Kenneth tonight.

Or he could milk that last one tonight after Ty thought he had none left in him. That sounded like a plan. If he could keep count with what Ty was doing to him. But either way, it would be fun to try.

 

 


	35. Vacation, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on vacation, Ty helps Damien rehearse

Ty looked down at the script. The ruins they were at made the perfect stage for Cinderella. One wall was completely intact plus two were mostly, sloping down to the missing one, and the extra stones had fallen or been carried outside the walls. No furniture, of course, but they could all pretend.

Kenneth grinned. He was Cinderella while Ty was the stepmother. Damien needed practice being the stepsisters. Ty had heard Tara play the stepmother often enough that he hardly needed to look at the script, although neither would help when Damien improved, which was what he’d start doing when he was more comfortable in the rolls. Right now he said a line, then wrapped a scarf over his head to deliver the second sister’s line.

That was funny all by itself.

Ty gave his line and Kenneth stated his. He was a much better actor than this is bed. But in bed he chose his role and his lines. Maybe it was time for Pirate King again as a reward for all their hard work. Ty hadn’t been tied up in a while.

A small gasp sounded behind them.

The girl stepped back. “Sorry, sirs.”

Damien frowned. “We saw you yesterday.”

The girl nodded.

Sure enough she was one of the local girl who worked at the manor house. Yesterday had been a tour day. They almost missed it in favor of staying in bed, but Kenneth rousted them out and into clothes. He’d made up for it last night. Plus the tour had been fun. One of the rooms would have made the perfect backdrop for Sleeping Beauty christening scene. And the kitchens gave him ideas for special touches for Jack and the Beanstalk.

She stepped back. Kenneth waved her closer. “We’re rehearsing a play, but we don’t have enough actors. How would you like to play Cinderella for us?”

The girl bit her lip. “Who is the prince?”

“Who do you want to be the prince?”

She glanced at Damien. He was closest to her age.

“Ty’s the stepmother and the fairy god mother. Damien can be the stepsisters and the prince.”

Ty laughed. “Who will you be then? The audience?”

“Of course.” Kenneth walked off the stage and sat on a pile of rocks. “We should start at the top. Cinderella, you’re on stage alone.”

Damien leaned against Ty at stage left. “The director.”

“What am I supposed to do?” The girl looked at the script. “Dust?”

“Sure. Action.”

Ty covered his grin. Action was for movies, but it made the point. Ty stepped onto the stage and read his line.

The girl’s eyes widened then she looked at the script. “She’s pretty mean, isn’t she?”

“She supposed to be, but if you look,” Ty pointed at the girl’s script, “you’ll see Cinderella doesn’t notice. She’s always sunny and cheerful.”

“Silly girl.”

“But that silly girl is you. Should I start over?”

The girl nodded. Ty walked off then back on stage and delivered the line. Damien came right behind him, arguing with himself, the scarf going off and on rapidly. The girl giggled, but managed her line without prompting.

Instead of only doing the scenes with the stepsisters in them, they did the whole thing to please their little actress. She laughed and spun around at the end. “That was fun. Can we do it again?”

Kenneth looked at Damien than back at the girl. “We don’t want to keep you.”

“I don’t need to be anywhere.”

She’d found her calling. They’d have a hard time getting rid of her.

Damien shrugged. Ty stepped forward. “You can stay, but this time, we aren’t going the whole way through. Only the scenes with the stepsisters. Is that acceptable?”

The girl nodded.

“And I’m not going to stick to my lines. When I pause, say what’s in the script.”

The girl nodded again.

They did the first scene a dozen times before they had to stop for dinner. The girl reacted to whatever Damien said, with laughter or angry gasps. Hopeful and audience would do the same.

She walked them back to their cottage. She really would be hard to get rid of. “No one will believe me. No one at all.” She’d said that several times already. Then she stopped suddenly. “Can we put it on at the manor? Please? No one will believe me otherwise.”

Kenneth grinned. “If you can get us permission?”

The girl bit her lip. “You’ll have to come ask for yourself.”

“Is tomorrow a good time?”

She nodded. Ty pointed back the way they’d come. “You better go grease the skids. Make sure they’re ready to say yes?”

“Yes! Thanks!” She ran back down the road.

Kenneth sighed. “I didn’t think we’d get rid of her so easy.”

“Maybe we haven’t.” Damien looked exhausted.

“Food first.” Ty decided. “Then we can walk down to the beach and watch the sun set.”

Damien grinned. “So we won’t be here even if she comes by.”

“We can take blankets down to the beach…” None of the other tourists were willing to venture down the beach stairs in the dark.

Kenneth grinned. “I like the way this is headed.”

“So do I,” Damien had the spring back in his step. “But food first because I’m starving.”

And Damien wasn’t holding back his wants and needs, a good sign.

“Let’s give him what he wants.” Kenneth opened the car door. Damien slipped in.

Ty leaned close to Kenneth. “And what he needs.”

He got in behind Damien. Damien grinned at him. “I love you too.”

The evening was looking better and better.


	36. Vacation, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth can't win, but gets some

Kenneth walked back to the manor in the morning. He’d left Ty and Damien in bed. Now that Damien was with them, Kenneth didn’t feel guilty exploring new places on his own. Ty wouldn’t have to wake up alone. And Kenneth had managed to get Damien enthusiastic enough about a place that Ty agreed to come too. If it didn’t have to do with food or staging, Ty would rather rest.

The air was brisk and clean. Cottages sprung up at random internals along the road, keeping the view interesting. Today he could conquer the world.

The manor was about the size of the dorm Kenneth had lived in during college, but only three floors tall. Lots of interest little outbuildings clustered around it. One of these days he should take up drawing. Or take back up. To have the free time of a teenager again.

But the trade off wasn’t bad.

Aoife waved from an upper window and arrived in the driveway before he did. She grabbed his arm. A woman’s voice rose. Aoife dropped Kenneth’s arm and stepped away. “Thank you for coming, sir. This way.”

But she couldn’t keep the skip from her step.

Her father was caretaker of the manor. On the day of the tour, he’d been in an old fashioned suit, but today he looked ready to pull stumps or haul dirt. He took off his cap. “My Aoife said something about her being an actress now.”

Kenneth held up a hand. “One of the men I’m vacationing with,” no need to go into detail with strangers, “is an actor and we’ve been helping him rehearse for his play.”

“Cinderella!”

Aoife’s father sent her a quelling look. She didn’t quell. He sighed and turned back to Kenneth. “This isn’t one of those…” 

He waved his hand vaguely.

“We were lucky enough to have her come along as he was rehearsing. I was having to play Cinderella.”

Aoife laughed. 

“So Aoife won’t…” He squeezed his hat.

“I’m not an actor. And she saved me. She only asked that we put on a play once here for you all to see.”

Her father scratched his head and put his cap back on. “I don’t see why not. If that’s all it’s going to be.”

“Our flight leaves Saturday, so Thursday or Friday? Is that too soon?”

Thursday was tomorrow. Their vacation was half over. But very much enjoyed.

Aoife ran into the manor to talk to her mother. She said family would want to come. And what about costumes. 

“We don’t need costumes. Everyone will be holding a script.”

“But that’s no reason not to do it right.”

Aoife must have gotten her enthusiasm from her mother. An apron was found to cover Aoife’s dress for Cinderella-in-rags, while she knew just the shawl to tie around Aoife’s waist for the fancy dress ball.

Kenneth couldn’t win this one. Maybe Ty could deal with it.

He left them to their planning—the parlor was picked for the stage because it was being cleaned top to bottom anyway so all the furniture had been removed—waved bye to Aoife’s father and headed back to the cottage.

His men were up. They had breakfast in the village, then Ty ran up to the manor to keep the little rehearsal from turning into an extravaganza. Kenneth took Damien picnicking on the rolling hills.

Damien lay back on the blanket, his stomach peeking out from under his shirt. “I guess I should get out more. We’ll only be here for two more days.”

He rolled to his side and his shirt hiked up further. “I should see the sights like you do.”

Kenneth grinned. “I like to do things on vacation that I can’t do at home. Much as I love you two, I can have sex with you anywhere.”

“Anywhere.” Damien rolled onto his back and rubbed his belly and chest, pushing his shirt up and his waistband down. He looked at Kenneth with heavy eyes. “Here for instance?”

He undid his shirt buttons starting at the bottom. Kenneth got up on his knees to watch.

“If,” Damien unfastened his jeans button, “the no ass rule unless were all together doesn’t apply this week, does it not apply for any of us?”

He was so beautiful, so needy, so determined. Would Ty forgive him if he took this opportunity? 

Damien tugged on Kenneth’s waistband, pulling him forward. “I know it’s Ty’s birthday present and all.” He sat up and unbuttoned Kenneth’s shirt. “But it’s been so long since I’ve been inside you.”

Kenneth was too hard to think. Damien unfasten Kenneth’s pants and stuck an hand in. Ty would just have to live with it. But…

“I didn’t bring any…”

Damien slipped lube and two condoms out of his pocket. “I was hoping.”

“Please.” Kenneth gave him everything, more than Damien asked. 

They lay panting and watched the clouds roll by. But the sun beat down too. “Much as I love being naked with you.” Kenneth pulled his clothes into some semblance of order. “I’d hate to have to explain the sunburns.”

He lay his hand over Damien’s groin. Damien groaned and covered up—his lower half. “I love you, you know.”

“I do.”

“I have sex with Ty much more often than with you.”

“True, but I still feel loved.”

“Good.” Damien cuddled against him. “It’s not like I’m not thinking about you.”

Kenneth kissed his head. “I know.”

“Or that I love Ty more. He is really handsome, but when it’s all him and no you… I’m missing something.”

Kenneth ran his hand down Damien’s bare side. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

“Sometimes, when you leave us together, I feel like you don’t want me.”

Where had he got that idea? “That’s not it at all.”

“And then you touch me, or grin, or whisper my name in your sleep and I’m happy again.” He cuddled closer.

“If I’m not showing my love, tell me.” Damien should never be upset or lonely again.

“You do.” Damien sighed. “Just not like Ty does.”

Kenneth laughed. “If I tried to keep up with Ty in bed, I wouldn’t have energy for anything else.”

Damien bit his lip. “You aren’t slowing down, are you?”

“No.” Kenneth’s doctor had given him a clean bill of health at his last physical. “If you’ll believe it, we hadn’t had sex in over a week the night we met you.”

Damien sat up. “A week!”

“We’ve gone as long as twenty-seven days once and the sex that ended that work induced celibacy was a two minute quickie that tided us both over for two more weeks.”

“No.”

Kenneth grinned. “Sometimes we’d go for days not seeing each other: I’d get ready for work while he sleep. He’d be at work when I got home. I’d make dinner and put his plate in the fridge and he’d get home after I was asleep. Then on our few days off, we’d see friends or watch movies or veg out online depending on how exhausted we were. You changed our relationship. For the better.”

“But you love him.”

“I do. He’s a part of me wherever I go, whatever I do.”

“And if I hadn’t come along?”

Kenneth shrugged. “We would still be together. Maybe having sex every day, maybe not. But I know I wouldn’t have had quite so much fun on this hill today.”

Damien grinned and cuddled back beside him. “Touch me some more before we go back.”

Gentle caresses and soft kisses became more. Ty wouldn’t expect them back before dinner time anyway.


	37. Vacation, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien picks a fight

Damien thanked everyone for their help. Aoife made a perfectly decent Cinderella. One of her cousins insisted on being a stepsister; Damien gave her the straight mean on and worked his magic on Stepsister Number Two, who was so conniving in her meanness that she came off as the heroine of the story, at least in her own mind.

Ty was the stepmother, but Aoife’s grandmother played the part of the fairy godmother. She cackled beautiful. It was hard to tell if she was good or evil. Jaron should really add that to the role.

Aoife’s younger brother lost it when he realized he wasn’t going to play the prince, so he got to be footman, which suited him fine, while an older boy played the prince. From the look of things Aoife’s father didn’t have to worry about her running off to be an actress. Maybe a very young bride.

The costumes were sparse, but perfect really. The audience, the rest of the family and some other locals, laughed at all the right parts. Kenneth recored the whole thing on his phone. Jaron would want a copy.

Aoife’s mother and aunts insisted on feeding them before letting them go. The food was good, but his men’s hands on him would be better.

Only would he get hands on him?

He laughed and joked with his audience. And tried to get everyone to recite their favorite line. Many were ones he’d said. He’d show Jaron just how comfortable he was playing the scheming roles. Toads and Diamonds, here he comes.

But finally time came to go home. Back to the cottage.

Ty drove. Damien wanted to sit in the back with Kenneth and start the foreplay, but Ty wasn’t talking to Kenneth right now and Damien didn’t want to make things worse.

He’d already ruined things. How come—

He bit down on the thought least it escape. Plenty of time to argue when no one was at the wheel of a car that drove down the wrong side of the road. At least no one had expected _him_ to drive here.

He hopped out of the car as soon as it stopped. The innkeeper was already partway to their door. “I heard you were up at the manor. Did you have a good time?”

Kenneth stopped to talk to her. So much for hashing out Ty problem and getting to the making up part.

Damien flung himself on the bed. If his men wouldn’t help him, he was going to have to get off alone. 

Ty stopped in the doorway. “Why doesn’t he just blow her off and come in?”

Was was he even asking? Kenneth never blew anyone off. Everyone was important in his book. Even Damien. “Maybe he isn’t ready to be shunned again.”

“I didn’t shun him.”

Damien sat up. “What was it then?”

“I just…”

“Just what?”

Ty turned away. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You stopped our game last night for nothing? You knew I’d been with him. Why’d you wait to get mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Then what is this? Sulking?”

“I’m not sulking?”

“That thing in the car wasn’t sulking?”

“No.”

“What was it then?”

“I’m…”

“You’re what?” Ty pacing like that was making Damien dizzy.

Kenneth stepped into the cottage and locked the door. He smiled in at Damien, which must mean he couldn’t see Ty’s face.

“Why was what I did with Kenneth so wrong?”

Ty shook his head. “Nothing you did was wrong.”

“All Kenneth did was what I asked. So what did _we_ do that was wrong?”

Ty turned away. They were never getting anywhere. One more day and he’d be traveling thousands of miles with this guy. They had to hash this out now. Or he’d go crazy.

“You’re angry that Kenneth and I had sex, like you and I did a hundred times since we got here. I’m not allowed to love Kenneth too? I thought we were over that.”

“That’s not it at all!”

“Then what is?”

Kenneth slipped out of his shoes and unbuttoned his cuffs. “Was it because I couldn’t get super hard for your Pirate game?”

Last night he’d said he needed eight hours after bottoming before he could top again. Damien hadn’t noticed before, but Kenneth always topped before he bottomed if he was doing both in one night.

Was that because he was almost forty? Would Damien get that way too? Or was it just how Kenneth was? Damien could live without that little difficulty.

“Damien and I could have postponed.”

“No.” Ty was so annoying.

“No to the postponing, or no for us enjoying each other without you?”

Ty paced to the bed and grabbed a pillow. Kenneth leaned against a dresser. Damien wanted held. He wanted arms around him. He wanted to be loved. “Do you love me?”

“Yes!” Ty frowned.

“Then act like it!” Damien stomped into the bathroom. He took a super long shower, dried off thoroughly, and marched back into the bedroom in just a towel.

Ty was leaning against a wall, the pillow against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, we aren’t you little puppets. We aren’t in the play of your life. You can’t pull our strings and expect us to be anything but angry.”

“Damien.” Kenneth lifted a hand. Damien sat beside him on the bed. Kenneth’s hand was warm in his. “I think we got this figured out.”

“But not resolved or you two would in bed waiting for me.”

Kenneth grinned.

Ty cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I just…”

Damien bit back a ‘just what’.

“He… believes that when you and I are together, I top. That he tops me and you and I top you. He’s a top, I’m versatile, you’re a bottom.”

Damien leaned on Kenneth and looked Ty’s way. “But I’ve topped you before.”

 Ty bit his lip. “It was good.”

“He had this idea in his mind and when we deviated,” Kenneth spread his hands. “He got upset.”

“That’s a pretty black and white view of the world.”

Ty looked away.

“I prefer the world in color.”

Ty nodded, but didn’t look at him.

Damien got up. His towel fell off. He wouldn’t need it anyway.

“I love you.” He ducked under Ty’s arms and slid up his chest. “You should hug me instead of the pillow.”

Ty sighed. “I’m being unreasonable.”

“Yes.” Damien slid his hands under Ty’s shirt. “But that doesn’t stop you from being hot.”

He gave Ty’s nipples a tweak.

Ty held him tighter. “I upset you.”

“You did. And now your going to make it up to me by making me come until I forget my name.”

“I’ll whisper it in his ear, so it takes him longer to forget. Then it’s my turn.” Kenneth had most of his clothes off and the clovers pulled back.

Ty nodded. “For him.”

“You, you silly dolt.” Damien pulled Ty to the bed. “When was the last time you had just him?”

Ty bit his lip. Damien pushed him onto the bed and kept his mouth too busy for self-torture. Kenneth joined in the fun. Damien got all his aggressive horniness out then pushed Ty onto Kenneth. They were really very sexy together. And they were his.

Damien tried not to touch himself while he watched. He was going to hold off coming for a long as he could, even if it killed him. But when he was as high as he’d ever been, his men pulled him close and washed his ache away.

 

 


	38. Labor Day, part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenneth plays host

Kenneth opened the door wide. “Come in, Miss Amelia, come in.”

Ty’s aunt had insisted on getting her own ride from the airport. Kenneth gave her a hug and left her in Ty’s hands while he helped the cabbie get her luggage out. Kenneth glanced in at the cab’s meter and paid the cabbie.

She came back out of the house as the cab driver got in his car. “I forgot to pay you.”

The driver looked at Kenneth and opened his mouth. Kenneth look the bills from Ty’s aunt and handed them to the driver. “Consider this a tip.”

The driver grinned. “Thank you, sir. Ma’am.”

He drove away.

Ty’s aunt frowned. “Was that enough? I was so excited to finally be here that I failed to ask.”

Kenneth took her arm and led her back to the house. “I made up the difference.”

Ty’s aunt smiled. “Thank you, dear.”

Ty lifted both suitcases and the carry on bag. “We could have got you.”

“I know that.”

“Or you could have rented a car.”

“But why? You’ve got three. And I’m only here for five days.”

Five long days.

“My dear Damien, you’ve grown.” She pulled him into a hug.

He grinned. “Not very much.”

She looked him over. “You're filling out. They must be feeding you well.”

“Kenneth is a good cook.”

She laughed. “I knew he had to be. Ty wouldn’t settle for anything less.”

She knew Ty’s eating habits from his years living with her.

“I have to go, Aunt Millie.” Damien picked up his bag. “Kenneth has tickets to my performance tonight, if you’d like to come.”

Ty’s aunt pursed her lips. “I was hoping to cook for you.”

“Tomorrow.” He kissed her cheek. “Tonight you can see me act.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

And then he was gone.

Ty’s aunt sighed. “He goes to work early.”

“He has a matinee this afternoon.” Ty picked up his keys. “Do you need anything at the store, Aunt Millie?”

“I don’t know yet.” She looked around. “I don’t feel as if I’ve stopped traveling yet.”

Kenneth would be playing host all afternoon. “Coffee?”

“Yes, dear.”

Kenneth sat her in their most comfortable chair and went back into the kitchen and poured her a mug with cream and sugar. “How was your trip?”

He kept her talking for two hours. Ty hadn’t yet returned. Whatever Chloe and Flannigan had heard at their prenatal appointment yesterday couldn’t have been good.

“Would you like a tour of the house?”

Ty’s aunt’s face lit up. “I’d love it. I’ve never been here before, you remember.”

Kenneth started with the spare room that he and Ty had cleaned out for Damien all those months ago. “This is your room.”

She looked around and out the window and into the closet as if she were thinking of buying the place. He showed he the bathroom she would be using and then down the hall. “And this is our room.”

He stood just enough in the doorway that she’d have to elbow past him to get in. She was the kind to look through drawers, wasn’t she? He gestured to their office and she was satisfyingly distracted guessing whose workstation was who’s. They all brought paperwork home and this room made sure plays, blueprints and legal briefs weren’t piled up in the living room.  When she’d had her fill, he suggested more coffee and they moved back to the kitchen, so he could start another batch.

The garage was right off the kitchen, so they restarted the tour there. Then they went outside and back around to the front door. They ended in the kitchen just as the coffee machine stopped sputtering. He poured her a cup. “I’m about to start dinner. Would you like to rest?”

“How can I help?”

He pushed all ungrateful thoughts away and set her to making the salad. He didn’t say anything when she cut the carrots, lettuce, and peppers differently than he did. Her salad, her shapes.

Ty returned and gave him a kiss. Then he talked lively with his aunt about everything but what he’d been doing all afternoon.

She finally went to freshen up for dinner.

Kenneth turned on the timer then pulled Ty into a hug. “Bad news?”

Ty rested his check on Kenneth’s shoulder. “Yes and no.” He sighed and leaned back against the counter. “The babies are fine. Strong heartbeats. Growing well. All that, but the doctor sat them down to go over the facts, which all look rather grim.”

“Twins making the pregnancy less likely to succeed?” Kenneth was glad these weren’t his children. Bad enough to live this through a friend.

“With one, she has a not too terrible chance of getting far enough along for the lungs to develop,” Ty ran his fingers through his hair. “Twins not so much.”

Kenneth took Ty’s hand.

Ty sighed and held on tight.  “And all I could do was pat shoulders and pass out tissues. Her mom and sisters were there last night with lots of advise. I have none.”

Kenneth leaned on Ty. “Maybe that’s why they needed you. They know we’ll back them whatever they choose?”

Ty nodded. “With homemade dinners and house cleaning if it comes to that.” He sighed again. “Complete bed rest is in her future even if she doesn’t keep them both. She’ll probably lose her job.”

“They can’t fire her for that.”

Ty nodded.

The timer went off. Kenneth poured the water out of the pasta and dumped in the sauce. He had so much to say, but Ty’s aunt came back out and Ty pretended nothing was wrong.

Ty didn’t have to pretend with Kenneth.

 


	39. Labor Day, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien enjoys his role

Damien shimmied into his ball gown. The stepsister’s dresses were normally garish, but Damien’s was demure, even more than Cinderella’s. His Stepsister Number Two made Drew feel ugly and ungainly in comparison and it showed, Jaron said. But he didn’t ask Damien to tone it down because wasn’t Cinderella supposed to feel that way? She had to have a reason to agree to the servitude. Drew’s Cinderella genuinely thought she deserved it.

Or at least his Cinderella opposite Damien.

Tara, as stepmother, led the way back on stage. Damien pretended to be sweet and innocent while being super mean to Cinderella. Then they leave again for the ball, stage left. Cinderella walks to the right and then left as the backdrop changes. Geo comes on stage right. His fairy godmother was scary: cackles and warts and all. Tara would have insisted on the part if she could have done both, but Geo’s makeup took close to an hour. As Tara’s understudy, Geo normally only got as far as the stage if Tara lost her voice or was wading through a royal hangover.

Cinderella gets her dress and a ride to the castle, the stage darkens, stagehands sweep on then off as the garden became a ball room. Damien took his place on stage with most of the cast. The lights came on. In the foreground the prince argues with his Father. In the background Stepsister Number Two flirts with the man nearest at hand. Her mother pulls her away. Just any noble isn’t good enough; she has to get the prince.

Cinderella arrives, capturing everyone's attention, with allows Stepsister Number Two to flirt with the same man again. Her mother doesn’t notice until the guy has a hand up the girl’s dress. Her mother pulls her away so they can make snide remarks about the “Princess” who has stolen the prince’s heart. That dance ends and Stepmother tries to get close enough to overhear what Cinderella and the prince say to each other, so she’s ignoring her younger daughter whose new beau never went far.

She doesn’t notice their tryst until the clock sounds midnight. Cinderella runs away and Stepmother drags her daughters out of the ball room.

As they step into the house, Stepsister Number Two is still arranging herself and can’t quite pull off the more pure than thou she was using against Cinderella earlier. And she’s angry at her mother. When the prince shows up to try shoes on all the ladies of the land, he brings her beau and when she comes back on stage to try on the shoe she’s very mussed up.

Her mother sends her to her room. She goes, but as a parting shot mentions Cinderella to the men. Not because, Damien had decided, she thinks Cinderella is the princess, but because her mother doesn’t want the men to know Cinderella’s there.

Cinderella comes on and the shoe fits. Stepsister Number Two’s beau kisses Stepsister Number Two in delight and the prince is so happy he bestows a barony on his valet, which was who the beau was all the time. Then the Stepmother pretends Cinderella was her favorite daughter and the audience can see her plotting to marry her oldest daughter off to one of other servants, as Cinderella and the Prince kiss.

The curtains dropped. Damien took a deep breath. He still had performance adrenaline pumping through him. The curtains opened again. Drew and Amy the prince stepped forward. It closed again. It opened. Damien, Tara, and Kyle, who played Stepsister Number One, stepped out. Damien took Drew’s and Tara’s hands and bowed. Geo, Madison the beau, and Betty the king stepped out. They all bowed again. The last time it was with all the cast.

Flowers were handed up from the audience. Drew and Tara got the most, but Damien had a good showing, especially since none of these were from his men.

The signal came to leave the stage and he went right around to the lobby. He had lots of programs to sign. Drew took his not-sure-he-deserves-to-be-a-princess persona to meet the audience, but Damien only flirted with his demure and lusty character’s personality.

A few people got too close or personal. Some wanted to know if he was dating Madison. What he did was called acting for a reason. He signaled Ty to him.

“This is one of my boyfriends.” Damien kissed Ty and then leaned against him.

“Are you poly?” asked the too interested woman.

“All the places are filled.” Ty nodded to her. “Aunt Millie wants you to sign her program.”

“Bring her over. Everyone, Drew won’t be at Timber's Bar tonight, so if you want to get your program signed, you better do it now.”

“Are we going to a bar?” asked Aunt Millie.

“I didn’t think you’d want to.” Ty helped her into her jacket.

“I’m old, not dead.”

Kenneth smiled. “Then we can go. But Sleeping Beauty here needs to be home by midnight.”

“Cinderella’s the one who has to be home by midnight.”

Damien left them to bicker as he went to change into his street clothes. The makeup always took longer to remove if he was in a hurry. He took a deep breath and set to work. He made sure his dress, underpinnings and wig were safe in the costumer’s hands and headed next door where Kenneth’s text said they were waiting for him.

Ty, though, was waiting in the lobby. They walked over to Timber's Bar together. Aunt Millie waved them to her table.

“How did you like the play?”

Ty and Kenneth shared a look over Aunt Millie’s head.

“It was so funny.” She stopped and put her hand to her chest. “It was supposed to be funny. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes.” Damien took a slip of whatever his men had bought him. Fizzy pineapple juice with a hint of something. Lime? Non alcoholic, of course. He’d pledged not to drink alcohol and got special dispensation to come into Timber's a few times a month. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“Ty says you used to play Cinderella. I’d like to see you do that.”

“I’m sure we have a DVD of it somewhere.” Kenneth looked at his phone.

Jaron sat at their table and plopped down his version of _Toads and Diamonds_. “Read it and tell me what you think.”

Damien opened it, but didn’t get as far as the first line before Jaron was talking again. He spoke of his hopes and fears for this new play and places he thought were weak, and his worries that Drew couldn’t handle the lead, which wasn’t really fair. His meek Cinderella had followed his arrogant Stepsister Number One. He could pull off the strong but nice girl needed, or he’d come up with something even better.

Other patrons came over and added their opinions to the mix. When would the night ever end? He closed the play. “Can I read this at home?”

“You aren’t leaving already?”

Kenneth consulted his phone again. “Miss Amelia,” he nodded to Ty’s aunt deep in conversation with Tara, “flew in from Louisiana this morning, so she’s still on Central time. She’s probably been up for twenty plus hours by now.”

Damien extricated himself from the group around the table and leaned against the bar by Tara. “Aunt Millie, I hope you're not upset, but we just used you as an excuse to head home.”

“But I’m having a wonderful time.”

Tara nodded. “She is.”

Damien faked a yawn and then was overwhelmed by a real one.

“My poor boy,” Aunt Millie took his arm. “You’re dead on your feet. Ty, we’re going home. Tara, it was so nice to meet you. My boys are having a little get together on Monday. Are you coming?”

That would have been really embarrassing if Tara hadn’t already been invited. “I would love to, Hun, but I work.”

She’d still be sleeping off Sunday night when the BBQ started at ten.

Then Tara’s face lit. “How about you come see me Monday and we stay out all night?”

That was a horrible idea. Tara winked. But it would mean one evening break from being hosts. Damien nodded. Tara’s smile brightened.

She and Aunt Millie ironed out the details and Tara gave out one of her coveted free tickets. Aunt Millie chatted gaily all the way home. But by the time everyone was shuffling around the house in their PJs, her day overtook her and she went off to bed.

Bed was what Damien wanted too. Kenneth laid down over the covers and shut his eyes. Damien tugged the covers over him. Kenneth held up a hand. “Get me comfortable and I’ll fall asleep.”

“That’s okay.” Ty gestured for Damien to get in, then turned out the lights and slid in after. “Holding out until Monday will just make sex all the sweeter.”

Damien didn’t want to hold out until Monday. Besides Flannigan and Chloe would probably hang around till all hours. But Kenneth was more fun when fully awake. Damien could wait for that.


	40. Labor Day, part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty enjoys Damien and reminds his friends they can enjoy each other

Ty parked in front of his house. The party must be over. Cars had filled the street when he left to drop Aunt Millie off with Tara. Aunt Millie had a backstage pass for the evening. Hopefully she wouldn’t get in anyone’s way.  
  
No one was in the house. He opened the fridge and grabbed the beer he’s been putting off until he was done driving. Aunt Millie had wanted a car, but Tara insisted it would just get in the way. Probably true if they planned to spend all night downtown.  
  
“Look who’s home.” Flannigan held up his beer. “Now the fun can begin.”  
  
Ty dropped to the edge of the deck, close to the chairs out on the grass. “So the fun ended when I took off?”  
  
“You wish.”  
  
Damien sat next to Ty and leaned against him. Only a few more hours and they’d have the house to themselves.  
  
“Kenneth is helping Madison and her husband take the tables and chairs back.”  
  
They were back to only they’re own outdoor furniture. They had rented instead of borrowed to keep Chloe from feeling like she had to carry something. She was looking a little pale around the edges just sitting in the shade. He held up his bottle to her. “You feeling all right?”  
  
She pressed her lips together between sips of ginger ale. “You guys.”  
  
Flannigan took her hand. She shook him off. “I’m pregnant, not broken. Women through the centuries have carried babies. Hundreds in the city right now. Go bug them.”  
Flannigan sighed. “Twins mean double the symptoms. Morning sickness all day long.”  
  
Chloe glared at him.  
  
“Not totally unusual.” Kenneth dropped a sleeve of crackers beside Chloe and moved a chair next to Ty’s feet. “Two of the women at work had that. One all nine months.”  
“See.”  
  
“I see, my queen.” Flannigan kissed her hand. “but those women aren’t my wife.”  
  
Kenneth took off Ty’s sandals, gooped his hands with cocoa butter, and gave Ty a massage. So good.  
  
Chloe pointed with her bottle. “I wouldn’t argue with a foot massage.”  
  
“One foot massage coming up.” Flannigan leaned back for the jar and had her moaning in minutes.  
  
Like Ty was, but although it felt lovely now, in a few moments it would be too much. Plus Ty wasn’t one to hold still. He removed his feet from Kenneth’s lap. “What about Damien?”  
  
Damien grinned. “Kenneth promised me one tonight.”  
  
“But why not one now too?” He pulled Damien into his lap and spread his leg as he scooted back. Then he bumped Damien’s legs into Kenneth’s lap and pulled off Damien’s tank top. “Pass up the cocoa butter.”  
  
Kenneth might be better at massages, but any excuse was a good excuse to touch Damien.  
  
Damien was even louder than Chloe.  
  
“Sounds like he needs a pillow about now.” Flannigan chucked at his own pillow-biter joke. Chloe whacked him with her fan.  
  
Damien’s face went red and he buried it in his bunched up shirt. Ty rubbed his cheek behind Damien’s ear. “Don’t be ashamed of how good you feel. I’m not.”  
  
Damien turned in Ty’s arms and buried his face in Ty’s shoulder. Ty grinned at Kenneth and they both renewed their efforts. Damien came a moment later with his cock pressed against Ty’s thigh.  
  
He took a deep breath, kissed Ty, and jumped up. “Thank you.”  
  
He ran into the house.  
  
Flannigan sighed. “How do you even do that?”  
  
“What I wouldn’t give for a massage that good.” Chloe sighed and leaned back in her chair.  
  
“Mine aren’t that bad.”  
  
“You’ve never made me come from a simple massage.”  
  
Flannigan grinned. “That depends on where the massage was.”  
  
She flicked his arm. “A back rub. From a back rub.”  
  
“Don’t forget the simultaneous foot rub.”  
  
“Don’t forget the foot rub you’re supposed to be giving me.”  
  
Flannigan sighed. “I think that needs to be put on hold until we get home.”  
  
He stood up.  
  
“Why?” She slipped on her shoes and stood.  
  
“Because the doctor said orgasms are good for your uterus. Helps keep it strong. And if you’re willing to experiment…”  
  
The pregnancy has so far upset them, scared them, and made Chloe sick. Flannigan and Chloe hadn’t done more than sleep beside each other in weeks.  
  
Chloe rolled her eyes, but grinned. She picked up the cocoa butter jar. “You have until this is empty.”  
  
Damien took the jar out of her hands and put an unopened one in. “It was over half gone.”  
  
Chloe opened the jar and took a long sniff. “All right. This smells just as good.”  
  
“Can’t be too careful.” Flannigan took the jar from her. “Everything seems to set her off these days. Our last bottle of shampoo was fine. Same brand, same kind, new bottle had her heaving.”  
  
She flicked him. “Don’t ruin the mood.”  
  
“Yes, dear.”  
  
Ty stood up to walk them out. “It was great to see you. Thanks for coming.”  
  
As if they didn’t see each other all the time.  
  
“We had fun.” Chloe took Flannigan’s arm. “And well have more fun later if I get to drive home.”  
  
Flannigan took the keys from his pocket and presented them to her. She laughed and crooked her finger at him. Ty left them to it.  
  
Kenneth and Damien were putting the last of the outdoor furniture away. Home was theirs again.  
  
Kenneth grinned. “That went better than I hoped.”  
  
“Yeah.” Damien dumped the ice out of the cooler and left it on it’s side. “We didn’t even have to prompt them.”  
  
Ty looked toward the side of the house. “That was planned.”  
  
Damien draped himself against Ty’s back. He was hard again. “Not exactly. We just wanted them to decide they would rather be home.”  
  
“And together.” Kenneth carried the last of the snacks inside. “It didn’t escape our notice that she stopped liking to be touched. I thought a foot massage would be nonthreatening.”  
  
“I’m glad we picked up more cocoa butter.” Damien held the jar against his chest. “I have plans for this.”  
  
“Do you now?” Ty leered at him.  
  
Damien laughed, turned, and wiggled his ass. Then he sauntered toward the bedroom.  
  
Kenneth nodded after him. “Why don’t you get him warmed up? I’ll join you in a bit.”  
  
Ty captured Kenneth’s lips. “Don’t take too long.”  
  
“I won’t. Damien had an idea and I want to see if we have all the ingredients.”  
  
“Sounds like fun.” Ty kissed him again.  
  
“I will be. Don’t make him wait.”  
  
A trail of clothes led to the bedroom. And one of Ty’s treasure waited inside.


End file.
